


Somewhere over the Rainbow

by Azia



Category: OFF (Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Graphic Description, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Government Experimentation, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-27 16:08:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6291046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azia/pseuds/Azia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The end is near. Awaiting your reply.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _THE ANTS GO MARCHING ONE BY ONE_

“This is… unclean.”

“Yeah, obviously. Even a blind man can see that.” His words were not sarcastic or demeaning, but instead were accompanied by a warmhearted laugh. “Just make sure not to step in any piss stains or fecal matter—human _and_ cow, how about that?—or broken glass or condom wrapp—wait! Hold your foot up really quick. See, look at this.” He must have been grinning behind his mask. He produced a tattered paper of wavy material that was once shiny and golden before it was discarded on the dirty walkway. “A Luck Ticket! Gee, you must really be my good luck charm after all, huh?”

“No.”

“Ah, always so serious. So, been meaning to ask you this: is your name really ‘Batter’ or is that just some type of uncreative nickname you’ve been stuck with? Because it just said ‘the Batter’ on your card, and I found that to be sort of strange.”

“It is a nickname.”

“That’s good. I was about to feel sorry for you if that was your real name. I wouldn’t know what to do with a name like ‘Batter.’ See, my name means ‘the Lord recalled,’ whatever that’s supposed to mean.” He stopped suddenly. They had reached the front of their destination: an apartment building – moderately sized with more broken windows than fixed – with curls of yellow paint peeling off the sides. The building stood up tall against the swirling smokiness of the clouds and had certainly rooted its feet into the ugly, browning grass and wild thorns and weeds below. “But I like my name. Zacharie. Simple, sweet, and to the point. Like myself.” Another chuckle. The Batter didn’t understand how his shorter companion could throw around laughs so easily like that.

Zacharie paused in front of a bench and sat. He patted the spot next to him and the Batter hesitated before complying. The seat looked dirty and he had just paid for his white trousers to be bleached and starched to perfection that morning. Oh well. It was easy to develop an “oh well” attitude in such an environment. Everything – from the green fragments of a shattered glass medicine bottle that the Batter had to push aside with his foot before sitting down to the teetering, cold metal of the bench they sat on – murmured, _“Oh well. Tomorrow is another day.”_

“I’m surprised there isn’t an ad on this bench,” Zacharie murmured. He took off his backpack and slung it in front of his feet. “Pretty rare find if I do say so myself. Maybe I can find a way to make a business out of this. Think about it: ‘The Anti-Purity Bond Bench.’ Hm, you think it’d sell?”

“No.”

“I appreciate your honesty, _amigo_.” He rummaged through his pack only briefly before taking out a large tin box. The box featured an advertisement on it – _OUT OF MEAT? PURCHASE MORE AT THE MALL!_ – with the Mall’s stamp on it. Zacharie traced his thumb over the chipper yellow songbird of a logo for a split second before he opened the lid.

The Batter cocked an eyebrow. “Cigarettes?”

“Sun’s going down, so it’s about smoking hour. I always sit out here because everybody’s coming off from their nine-to-five’s and they’re definitely aching for a smoke. They can’t get enough of these, but I personally find them tasteless myself.” Zacharie took out one of the rolled up papers, stuffed to the brim with greenish, brownish tobacco and held it toward the Batter. “Want one? They’re usually three credits each, but since we’re pals I’ll lower the price down to just two credits.” The Batter shook his head. “Ah, your loss. Back on topic now. You wanted info?”

“Yes.”

“Why? And also, I don’t like giving out _too much_ information for free.” Zacharie rubbed his fingertips together. The Batter could only sigh. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out what Zacharie so desired. The money was dyed blue (official money was blue, yet counterfeit was off-blue or a washed down hue, but no one really cared) and crumpled in a ball. The front featured the face of the Queen, softly smiling, looking regal and gentle as always. Zacharie squealed as the money was pressed into his weary hands. “Thank you for your donation!” He tucked the credit into his own pocket.

“I cannot recollect anything,” the Batter started. “I remember that I was supposed to come to you, but that is about it. I do not remember my name, my home, where I am, or anything else.”

“Hm, interesting. Did you play too hard on the field recently? Missed the ball and it came straight at the old noggin, damn the helmet? That could certainly rustle up some memories, I’m sure.”

“If so, I do not remember. And I do not wear helmets.” The Batter touched the brim of his cap for emphasis. It was a simple hat. Black, no logos if he could help it.

“Hm,” Zacharie shrugged. “Well, first things first, you’re in Hell, and I like to consider myself the one-man welcoming committee, so I hope you enjoy your stay.” He laughed again. He couldn’t help it, the man always looked so stern, so serious, like he hated the very idea of jokes. Comedy did seem out of place in such a bleak atmosphere. That’s why Zacharie used it all the time. “No, no, I kid, I kid. This is the WORLD. No one really remembers what that stands for anymore, but we’re all stuck here. People who try to leave do not come back, so I don’t recommend it, but if you try to escape—” Zacharie raised his hands in mock defeat “—I can’t stop you.

“This place has zones. Currently, we are in Zone 0, debatable whether it’s an official zone or not. No one works here and there’s technically a Guardian, my good friend, Pablo, but he isn’t like the others. He doesn’t work people to death or demand attention or force anybody to do anything.” He gestured toward the complex behind them. “He just lets them live in the building and go about their business. If they don’t bother him, then everything’s all right. He’s so nice, providing shelter for all the scared, little peoples he could.”

“Why is there no workforce in Zone 0?”

“He just—I don’t know—he just... _doesn’t find the need_ _to work others_. He’s not interested in the elements. He just wants to live his life and doesn’t want to strip that right away from anyone else. Does that make sense?” The Batter gave a curt nod. “Good, good. Maybe I’ll introduce you two soon.”

“There are other zones?”

“Yup. Like I said, we’re currently in Zone 0, or the Quiet Zone, whatever you wanna call it. I call it Pablo’s Palace, but he doesn’t like that. Then there’re Zone 1, Zone 2, and Zone 3. Each has a Guardian. Zone 0’s Guardian is, _like I said_ , Pablo. Zone 1’s is Dedan, Zone 2’s is Japhet, and Zone 3’s is Enoch. And then the entire WORLD is ruled by the Queen, Madame Eloha, bless her name.” He nudged the Batter’s side. The man was solid. No soft curves, all rough lines. Hopefully his blank expression and intimidating massiveness wasn’t going to scare off any customers. “You see, whenever you say her full name you have to bless her. It’s disrespectful if you don’t.” Zacharie shrugged.

“Can I go to Zone 1?”

“Um, you _can_ , yes. But right at this exact moment? No. You need special permission from Pablo. You see, the workers coming in are mainly from Zone 1 actually, and they all have these permits that they have to show before they enter here. As the saying goes: ‘No permit, no pass.’ And somebody like you especially isn’t going to pass on through, no, no, _you_ , sir, _definitely_ need to carry a permit on you at all times if you plan on going places.”

“‘Somebody like me.’”

Zacharie bit his lip underneath the mask. The way the Batter talked could only be described as odd, indifferent. The man picked and chose what he heard and expected an answer then and there whenever he spoke, even when his questions sounded more like statements and demands. Zacharie rolled a cigarette in between his fingertips.

“Of course. If you haven’t noticed, you’re huge. And if you think I’m on the short side, the average man around here is about, uh, yay-big.” Zacharie held his hand to his chin. The Batter actually snorted. Zacharie couldn’t help but chuckle back. So he _did_ have a sense of a humor after all.

“That is a pathetic size.”

“I know right? Wait until the workers start rolling in, then you can see it for yourself. So, yeah, what I’m basically saying is that you’re different. You stand out. Which can be a good or bad thing depending on how to take it. Just be prepared for weird looks and some guys might ask to see a permit or an ID, so you might as well just wear it on your shirt or something before you get too annoyed.”

The Batter moved to stand. “Let us go see your friend for a permit now.”

“Wait, wait, not now. He’s busy. He doesn’t like being bothered when the workers are coming in. It’s too noisy for him. Wait until tonight, when things start settling down some, and then we can see if he’s up. If not, we can wait ‘til morning. He’s usually up bright and early and willing to take visitors before everybody leaves for work.”

“Okay.” The Batter sat back down.

“Um, where was I? You keep making me lose my train of thought. Uh… oh, that’s right. Stuff. Yeah, let’s talk about _stuff_. That’s my favorite thing to talk about, you know why?” The Batter shook his head. “Because stuff equals money and money makes the WORLD go round. See, earlier you stepped on a Luck Ticket. You need those to cash in on health benefits. Stuff isn’t free. That’s why Pablo is so highly regarded around here, because he only asks for quiet and an annual rent fee. Me—not so much. I like to chalk prices up, milk things out for what they’re worth.”

“I see.”

“We got Luck Tickets and Fortune Tickets, great for restoring health. Just cash ‘em in to any one of the Recovery Kiosks, and you get yourself a little kit—certified by Pablo and I ourselves—and you should be good to go. But I carry supplies on me all the time, so you can just give them to me and it should be fine. Flesh is better though. You have Silver and Golden. Helps when you’re in a pinch and can’t find a kiosk.”

“I see.”

“Wow, you’ve said that twice now. Not much of a conversationalist, are you?” A laugh bubbled out of Zacharie from the sight of the other’s expression (or lack thereof). “It’s fine. Perfect, really. I love to talk and you must like to listen. A match made in Heaven.” Zacharie sighed. “If you’re on the verge of death, you can cash in a Joker card, but they’re expensive and a rarity. Keep those in your pockets, too. The squirts around here look harmless, but they’ll do anything for a Joker.”

“I imagine that a person would do anything to revive themselves or a loved one.”

“Yeah, you get the picture. Let’s see. We have elements here, yes.” Zacharie counted off his fingers, “Smoke, metal, plastic, meat, and sugar. These people will literally work themselves to death producing them. Smoke is produced in the Smoke Mines of Damien, down in Zone 1. The guys need it like oxygen, so obviously they’d go crazy over me finding a way to make a ‘travel-sized’ version of it.” Zacharie gestured toward the cigarettes. The people still haven’t come yet. Strange. “Smoke is shipped in bottles and sold at the Mall down in Zone 2. The guys who are too exhausted to go all the way to Zone 2 come to me to get their smoke fix. Good business.

“Metal is produced in the Metal Farmsteads of Pental in Zone 1. Metal is everywhere. In the ground, in the buildings, hell, we’re sitting on it.” Zacharie knocked his fist against the bench. A ringing sound followed. It was pleasant to the ear. “We get plastic from the Plastic Administrations of Shachihata in, _surprise_ , Zone 1. I love how official they make everything. ‘You have received a telegram from the Plastic Administrations of Shachihata, Zone 1.’ I love it, I really do. The workers do this whole packaging process to get the plastic. I think it’s shipped to here from other places or something. Then we use liquid plastic for the water borders and solid plastic for other stuff, like, um… well, I don’t have an example, but you get the picture.”

“’Other places.’”

“Yes. Isn’t it weird how we have a thriving, working mail system and we’re always getting packages of plastic, but whenever we ask for other things our messages get ignored?” The Batter cocked an eyebrow. _Interesting_. “I don’t know. Food for thought. Speaking of food, we have meat, the last natural element. That’s made in the Meat Fountains of Alma, Zone 1. Nice place. Love the smell. It’s so raw. That comes in bottles too and you can buy it at the Mall, or from me, you know, I’m closer than the Mall and chea—no, I’m not cheaper, just closer, eh.

“Last, but not least, we have sugar, the unnatural element. It’s made in the Sugar Ovens of Vesper down in Zone 3. There actually isn’t any elemental production in Zone 2 either, but everything’s shipped there to be sold. I actually don’t know what the stuff’s made out of and there are theories about it, but it’s been on the hush ever since good ol’ Enoch invented it. People would kill to have that, too, so be careful with the stuff if you ever get a hold of it. I mean, I doubt it, though. It’s so expensive and rare, you probably have to go all the way down to Vesper and sneak some out of the ovens if you want the pure stuff and not watered-down, bootleg crap like I got.” Zacharie let out a breath. “Okay, did you get all that or do we need to recap?” The Batter shook his head.

“There are four zones, five elements, four Guardians, one queen, millions of workers, and then the two of us.”

“Oh, there’s Valerie too. He’s Pablo’s brother. They love each other to death. Inseparable. But, yeah, I think you got everything. I can get into the bloody details later, but…” He rubbed his fingers together again. “You need to show me the color of your credits before we can indulge.”

⁂

The unmistakable smell of the combination of human and animal waste did not go amiss as the Batter and Zacherie ascended the staircase alongside the crowd up the apartment. “The building’s called ‘Joas,’ for future reference,” Zacharie had said. The Batter only grunted in response, but all information was useful in his delicate mind.

Zacharie’s room was nothing too special, but that didn’t stop him from presenting it with a flourish. “See, right here we have a mattress fit for a king. Why a king, you ask? Because it’s _king_ -sized. No lumps, and if you ever have the urge to look underneath it, I recommend that you do not.” He moved to lift up the curtains. They were heavy, dusty old things. He had a window with the glass still completely intact. The view was glum. They were in the middle of the building and the Batter could see more workers dwindling in from Zone 1 to the apartment. The swollen sun was peeking behind more spirals of dark clouds and the moon and stars were on their way. When it was dark, it was pitch black save for the emergency streetlamps lining the walkways. That was one thing that the Batter could recall.

“A room with a view,” Zacharie said. He left the curtain opened. The Batter’s hands twitched. “Um, I’m running low on meat at the moment. How embarrassing, I know. But I was expecting you tomorrow. Good thing you remembered our arrangement through your amnesia and came early, because I didn’t really want to come and get you.” He handed the Batter a small plastic packet containing a slither of cooked meat – beef – and a glass bottle. “Water,” he said when the Batter only stared at it. “Good for the traveling soul, and I’d usually charge for this since it’s so rare, but it’s on the house for you, roomie.”

“Thank you.”

“Aw, don’t make me blush. You’re welcome.” Zacharie took off his backpack again and settled down on the mattress. “Glad we’re starting off on the right foot. Oh, and there’s only one mattress and I’m not giving it up for anybody, so we’re either sharing or you can find a place to cuddle up on the floor. I can round up some papers or something and ask to order another blanket.” He sat up suddenly. “Ooh, I forgot about the benefits we could get since this is officially a two-unit home now. Double the free ration-plastic supply _and_ we’re more eligible for luxury items. Now I’m really happy that you’re staying with me.”

The beef was tough and caught between the Batter’s teeth. He grimaced, really the first expression that he had shown in front of Zacharie. It was unconscious, automatic. He couldn’t help himself. He swallowed down the water. Stale. It knotted in his throat and he could’ve choked if not for his sheer determination to finish the meal.

Zacharie only watched, silent for the second time of the day. “You know, let me just say this, you look better in person than in the photographs. Whoever that photographer was did you no justice. But problem: the hair. That’s what’s been throwing me off since the moment I saw you.”

The Batter removed his cap. He felt the cooling air of the room flow through his hair. There was no air conditioning or no heater around that he knew of. The apartment complex would grow sweltering midday and arctic at midnight, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

“I dyed it.”

“Why? Not that you look bad now, I mean, the dark hair really suits your mood, you know. Serious, all business, no nonsense. Not that blond didn’t suit you or anything either, it just feels like you’re not a _blond_ kind of guy, you know?”

The memory came to him naturally: “There were no blond players allowed on the All-Star Team.”

“Oh, how interesting. Of course they want everybody to look alike. Let me guess, you had a strict dress code too?” The Batter nodded. “That must suck. Looking like everybody else, blending in with the crowd. After an hour of working Shachihata I ran and never went back.” He chuckled. “It pays to be free, my friend.”

“What is your real name?”

“Huh? Kind of a sudden question there, buddy.”

“What is it?”

“Zacharie, uh, Toya. Yeah, that’s my permitted name.”

“I said _real_ name.”

“That’s one thing you can’t pay money for.” Zacharie lied down again. “There’s a reason why I wear a mask, friend, well, two actually: one, health issues, and two, I’m hiding.”

“You are not going to tell me what you are hiding from.”

“No, but I’m sure you will find out. All secrets spill eventually, dear Batter, no matter how hard you try to hide them.” The ends of Zacharie’s smile curled. He had selected the right player on the team. “Back to the mask. This is made of a special material, crafted in Zone 2. It may not look like much, but I pay top dollar to maintain this. There’s a system to it.” Zacharie sat up slightly and moved his sweater. The Batter could see that the man was wearing layered clothing. The Batter himself had on a loose-fitting jersey with a flimsy tank-top underneath. “I have these tubes and a little oxygen tank on my back.” Zacharie settled back down again. “There’s too much smoke in the air and I’m just a little asthmatic.” He shrugged. “Before you settle down, look in the drawer in the corner. Middle one. Look underneath my sweaters.”

Zacharie pulled the blankets over his body and turned over. The Batter looked upon the man’s small sleeping form. He had no right to think of Zacharie as an enigma, because he was one himself. They were certainly an odd couple – a talkative, short, popular merchant and a reserved, tall, cool-headed baseball player, but their future looked bright. The Batter walked toward the dresser. Yes, he thought to himself, their future looked bright indeed.

There were papers underneath the clothes. Old papers, yellowed around the edges and torn in some places. Photographs, too. The Batter carefully pulled them out. He cleared away a spot on the floor, crossed his legs, and laid the papers out in front of him. He looked at the roughest looking document first. The words were in a foreign tongue that he recognized. 

> REQUEST FOR ‘WORLD’ TRIAL II FUNDS
> 
> _WORLD — We Offer Refuge for the Lost and Desperate — will like to request another trial period to offer refuge for victims and veterans of _______________. Survivors shall stay in their homes until an alternative shelter is presented. _ _Victims and veterans alike shall reap the same benefits. No bias._ _Fewer supplies shall be shipped. All requests for more supplies and letters home to be ignored, as requested by __________________. Mail systems will be closely monitored. _ _New land has been discovered._
> 
> _Awaiting your reply._
> 
> _YOUR FRIEND,_  
>  _______._

“They’re censored.” The Batter’s ears perked up. Zacharie still had his back to him. “I always found that weird. _Something_ happened. Something so bad that they had to go back and censor everything.” The Batter didn’t respond.

> APPOINTED LEADERS ARE AS FOLLOWS:
> 
> _i. MADAME VADAR ELOHA of FRANTSIYA — an additional family member requested -- relationship: child, HUGO ________ \-- request has been accepted upon thorough examination, reason: medical._  
>  _ii. SIRE ________________ of _____________________ (certification of new citizenship and official declaration of no involvement in the Eurasian Treaty has been officiated and approved) — an additional family member requested -- relationship: child, HUGO ________ \-- request has been accepted upon thorough examination, reason: medical._  
>  _iii. LE JUGE PABLO CŒUR DE LION of FRANTSIYA — an additional family member requested -- relationship: brother, VALERIE CŒUR DE LION -- request has been accepted upon thorough examination, reason: medical._  
>  _iv. GENERAL DEDAN XIÀO of KYÜVEK (certification of new citizenship and official declaration of no involvement in the Eurasian Treaty has been officiated and approved) — two additional family members requested -- relationships: first father, Raamah Xiào; second father [first father’s spouse], Jokshan François -- requests have been denied upon thorough examination, reason(s): radicals._  
>  _v. MULLAH YAFETH BIN NUH of MAROKKO and ISPANIYA (certification of dual and new citizenship, no bias towards either nations, and official declaration of no involvement in the Eurasian Treaty has been officiated and approved) — note: no additional family members were requested._  
>  _vi. ENOCH SCHWARTZ VON HIMMEL of LRSTENINA (certification of new citizenship has been officiated and approved) — five additional family members requested -- relationship(s): father, Mathusaleh Schwartz von Himmel; mother, Florentin Edelmann; brother: Jared Schwartz von Himmel; significant other [marriage license pending]: Wenzel Radnitz; child [illégitime]: Enos Schwartz von Himmel-Radnitz -- requests have been denied upon thorough examination, reason(s): radicals, unclear background checks, generally disagreeable persons._
> 
> _Awaiting your reply._
> 
> _YOUR FRIEND,_  
>  _ ______._

“The picture.” Zacharie’s voice was slow and strained. He yawned. The Batter picked up the photograph.  A woman with long, wispy hair stood in the front, her eyes were warm and delightful and her smile slight and joyous. Just from a picture, the Batter received an almost magical presence from her. She seemed unworldly. Perhaps it was how she managed to look youthful despite her white hair, or how she managed to look different than everyone else in the picture despite that fact that they all wore the same tightfitting uniform.

Next was a tall man (perhaps even taller than the Batter), standing in the back. His grin was downright vicious. It looked like he had too much teeth for his mouth, they were jagged and many were pointed. He wore his uniform proudly, and was the most decorated out of the group, with shiny medallions across both of his shoulders. His head was shaved and upon closer examination, the Batter could see that the man’s hand was on the woman’s shoulder. He was the only one touching her in the photograph.

Standing next to the proud man was another man, also tall, but very skinny. It looked like someone had flattened and stretched him out with a rolling pin. He looked nervous. His smile looked forced. The last man in the photograph was also proud and tall, but large in size. His head was shaved also, and his grin wasn’t wicked like the first man, but genuine. He just looked happy to be there.

There was a person standing to the side of the tubby man. Their face was completely blacked out.

“They look different now.” The Batter set the photograph down. He gathered up the documents and replaced them neatly into the drawer. He had seen enough for the day. “Coming to bed, or are you sleeping on the floor?”

“I will sleep on the mattress.”

“Nice choice. I haven’t slept with someone in a while.” Zacharie chuckled. “There’s plenty of blankets for everyone, don’t fret.” He moved slightly to make room for the Batter. “G’night, Batter.”

“Goodnight.”

The Batter couldn’t sleep until the stars shone most high.


	2. Orange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _THESE VIOLENT DELIGHTS HAVE VIOLENT ENDS_

Zacharie was basically nose-to-nose with the man. “Good morning to you too, dear Batter.” He yawned. “You’re very close.” The Batter didn’t move. Zacharie pulled down his blankets slightly and sighed. “Can I help you?”

“You said that we would go visit your friend in the morning if he wasn’t available at night. You didn’t even bother to pay him a visit last night.”

“Oh, I completely forgot, I was so tired. Sorry about that. We could go in just a moment if you just back away a little so I can get up.” The Batter moved then. Zacharie stole some quick glances at the man as he pulled on his socks and shoes. The only evidence that the man had even lied down were the slight wrinkles in his shirt, but he looked as if he had been standing center in the room all night. Zacharie placed his elbow on his knee and leaned his chin into the palm on his hand. “Are you hungry?”

The Batter looked down. “Hungry?”

“Yes, that’s what I said. Are you hungry? Because I have a million breakfast packets and I’m willing to share.” The Batter only stared down on him. Zacharie couldn’t detect any confusion on his face, but he wouldn’t describe the man’s face as _completely_ devoid of any emotion. He figured that the man was capable of showing and feeling emotions, like any other person, but there was _something_ wrong. (There always seemed to be something wrong.) Zacharie stood up. Another question to file away for Pablo, he figured. “Come here, friend,” he beckoned.

The Batter’s footsteps were quiet as he followed the shorter man to the corner of the room. He took out his second backpack – “morning” was embroidered across the bag in neat, white lettering and the Batter wondered how he didn’t notice that the bag from yesterday read “evening” – and pulled out another plastic packet. The Batter looked it over, but didn’t open it.

“I’m not hungry.”

Zacharie rummaged in his bag for just a moment before putting it on and hooking his thumbs underneath the straps. “You should still eat, though. You don’t know when your next meal is gonna be around here. One second I have a mountain of leftover breakfast packets and the next I’m scavenging through Alma for scraps.” Zacharie shrugged and walked toward the door. “Ready to meet Pablo?” The Batter nodded. “Good. I just hope he’s ready to meet you.” Zacharie chuckled, but the Batter didn’t find anything funny.

⁂

Pablo lived up in the highest room of the Joas. The Batter took note that not even the Guardian’s room could hide from despair, but it at least smelled tremendously better. The room was perfectly square – like all the other rooms in the complex – but it was bigger and the walls were freshly painted a soft coat of yellow.

In the wide space, the Batter could spot a bed in the corner (an actual bed with a frame, not a mattress) with velvet blankets sided by a nightstand covered in papers. There was a desk in the center of the room. Its large, metal top was covered with even more papers and books, albeit stacked in a more organized manner than the ones on the nightstand. A bookcase stood behind the desk, but there were more papers and folders than books inside of it. A crinkled photograph hung from one of the shelves of the case. The Batter moved closer to inspect it.

“I am going to assume that you and your companion are only mere figments of my imagination, because I still _wholeheartedly_ believe that my dear friend, Zacharie, heeded my pleas to _not_ break and enter and intrude upon my home ever again. And I would have to be near _senile_ to believe that he would not only break and enter into my residence once again, despite how many times I have politely asked him _not to_ , but to bring a stranger along with him—ha!—outrageous. No, not only is the thought outrageous, it is, dare I say: downright _scandalous_. No, these two entities that stand before me are merely images that my great mind has decided conjure up to punish me after putting it through another battle of insomnia due to my late-night reading habits. Yes, that would seem most likely. Zacharie would never disobey my wishes, ever.”

The Batter turned around. The man standing before them wasn’t in the photograph from last night. Perhaps he was the blacked out person? No. The censored person had been as tall as the other men, while this man was barely Zacharie’s height. The man was dressed sharply in a pair of dark trousers – crisply ironed and creased – secured mid-stomach by a simple belt, a collared white dress shirt, and a black tie. His outfit was reminiscent of the clothes that the Batter had seen the workers wear: white shirts, black ties, dark pants, but the man’s shoes were interesting. They were two-toned, brown and white, the same color as his belt. The man’s hair was dark – an authentic color, the Batter assumed, not dyed – and neatly combed, parted on the sides so some hair could willfully fall across the forehead.

Everything was formal about the man, from the way he spoke to the way not a hair or article of clothing was out of place, until he smiled. It was a wide grin, and his mouth was all teeth, but they weren’t jagged and sharp and uncontrolled like the first man from the photograph, they were simply _too large_ for such a small man, the Batter thought. He now noticed the man’s uncomfortable-looking overbite. The man’s features were all soft and small – button nose, catlike eyes with dark irises and long lashes, a delicate cheekbone structure and jawline – until the Batter reached his teeth. If anything was outrageous, it was the man’s teeth.

Zacharie broke the Batter out of his train of thought with a chuckle. “Pablo, you must really be hallucinating if you think that I’m actually going to start following the rules.” The man sighed, exasperated, and just closed the door behind him instead of kicking the intruders out. He looked expectedly at Zacharie.

“Introduce me to your inexistent apparitional companion. I am aching to know his name.”

Zacharie placed a hand on the Batter’s shoulder – or, _tried to_ , but settled by intertwining an arm around the taller man’s arm instead – and pulled him away from the bookcase and the picture. “Well, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to leave you aching, my friend. He,” Zacharie patted the Batter’s arm before pulling away, “doesn’t remember his name, but everybody calls him ‘the Batter.’”

“Ah, I see.” The man paused before he held his hand out. “Well, until he rediscovers his lost appellation in the banks of his deteriorating memory, he may address me as ‘the Judge’ so he does not feel alone.” The Batter shook the Judge’s hand. “I’m delighted to meet you, even though you are to be an ectoplasmic entity,” he joked with a smile that was all teeth.

“I need a permit,” the Batter said after giving the Judge’s hand a firm shake. His large hand nearly completely enveloped the smaller man’s, but the Judge gave a hearty shake in return. His hand was warm and devoid of any callouses.

Zacharie sighed from behind him. “He’s a very straightforward kind of fellow.”

“Yes, I can see.” The Judge walked to his desk. “My only true purpose is to house workers and sign permits at the end of the day. This business of small talk and jokes is truly unnecessary.”

“Jokes are never unnecessary,” Zacharie said.

“Your new friend’s expression says otherwise, I’m afraid.” The Judge took out a pen, signed something, and then handed it to the Batter. “You can now travel as you please from between Zones 0 and 1.” The Batter placed the plastic card in his back pocket and nodded. “Not much of a conversationalist, I see? Good. Sometimes speaking with Zacharie gives me a headache.”

“I take offense to that!”

“You do not have the right to take offense to anything! You have just broken into my home for the _umpteenth_ time. You should be happy I haven’t evicted you from the entire complex by now.”

“You love me too much to that, Pablo. Pablo’s Palace wouldn’t be the same without me.” The Judge frowned.

“I thought we had retired that unpleasant byname.”

“Nope.” Zacharie shook his head with a laugh. “I like it too much.” He turned to the Batter again. “Any questions before we leave?”

“Yes.” The Batter looked over the Judge again. His head was blocking the photograph on the bookcase. “You do not look as if you belong in such an unruly place.”

The Judge laughed. The sound was different than Zacharie’s. His laugh was quieter, tighter than the easygoing merchant’s. “I was anticipating an interrogation, not a compliment. Thank you, Batter.” He leaned against his desk. “You are staying with Zacharie, I presume, so you must have learned something from the man, even if your companionship of one other has only reached the date of a singular night.”

The Batter nodded. He did have some questions. “Your name was on the documentation as a list of leaders for this place, _Le Juge_ Pablo Cœur de Lion of Frantsiya, yet you were not in the photograph that Zacharie had given me.”

“Oh, are you speaking of that photograph of Dedan and the Queen and the rest? Where everyone was dressed in their uniforms?” The Batter nodded. “Of course I am not in the photograph, I have no military affiliations. I am merely just a judge from Frantsiya, nothing more. Dedan was a great general at one point and I believe that the Queen commanded an army once upon a time. Who knows, though?” The Judge shrugged. “There is something alike about us, Batter. Like you have forgotten your name, I have forgotten my past. Yes, I recollect bits and pieces here and there, but if it has nothing to do with the WORLD, then I have simply _forgotten_ about it. And it frustrates me to no end.”

“Then you must not remember why you were appointed a Guardian?”

“No, I am afraid not. My apologies.” The Judge tapped his fingers across the desk. “So, ‘the Batter.’ With a sobriquet like that I assume that you were once a member of the All-Star Team?” The Batter nodded. “Memory lost is common around here, yes, but I have not heard of someone forgetting their own name.” He gestured toward the chair in front of the desk. “Sit and tell me everything. I’m deadly curious.”

The Batter moved to the seat. It was metal, but more comfortable than the bench from yesterday. “I woke up yesterday in an unfamiliar place. There were clothes on my beside with directions on where I could get them cleaned and where to find Zacharie, but nothing more. I just did as the note said.”

“Ah, ah. How interesting.” The Judge rubbed his chin in thought. “People here simply forget things, no matter how mundane or important. I muse that it is a tactic by the Queen to keep the workers at bay. We do not need the denizens to worry about the outside because it could cause trouble. And I do not speak of minor inconveniences such has the population becoming curious and asking questions. No, I speak of major disturbances and disorders as large as rebellion and a possible uprising. And the last thing the Guardians desire is a revolt when things have finally begun to run smoothly.”

“Are you implying that things weren’t ‘smooth’ before?”

“Perhaps.” The Judge left it at that. “My theory is that you are being treated as a ‘newcomer.’ Even though you were part of the team, I am assuming that the Queen has requested that you were to be administered an additional dose of blockers because you are now entering our society for the first time. I will admit that I know minimal about the All-Star Team. I have always seen the team and baseball altogether as mere flashy distraction, an _opiate of the masses_ , if you will. But I do know that the team was sequestered in an unidentified location, away from the citizens, and when some of the members were released upon their wishes to join the public, their dose of blockers were increased as so they would not be harmful to the citizens as they were a bit hostile and combative from being locked away from so long. I hope that explanation was thorough and satisfying for you?” The Batter nodded. “Hm, splendid.”

“Do you know who the censored person from the photograph is?” The Judge’s eyes darted up to Zacharie’s for a moment before he shrugged.

“As I have said before, I was not in the photograph, thus I have little knowledge over the events that took place during the shooting of it. I have no military ties, yet, neither does Enoch, so I personally do not understand why he was invited in the picture nor why he was wearing a uniform like the others.” He shrugged again. His shoulders were slim and bony and his entire body seemed to move with the action. The Batter never imagined he would encounter such _tiny, delicate_ people. “I have no idea who the censored person might be. I have a confession: I haven’t spoken with Enoch, Dedan, or even the Queen for a lengthy period of time now. I keep in touch with Japhet, yes, because we are close friends, but I do not ask him about the other Guardians because, frankly, I care little for them.” He sighed. “I apologize again for my unhelpfulness. My once exquisite mind has proven to be useless over the duration of my stay here. I don’t even remember much about being a judge. It’s quite pitiful, really.”

“It’s alright, Pablo,” Zacharie filled in. “You’re trying your best.”

“Hush, merchant.” The Judge turned back to the Batter. “I recommend that you speak to my brother if you so thirst for the information I cannot provide you. He had just left the day prior to travel to the Library to pick up my book orders, so you must speak with Dedan to receive a permit to Zone 2.” The Judge straightened up suddenly. “Ah, I might have something that could be of use to you actually.” He began to search through his papers on the desk.

The Batter could see the photograph now. It was of the Judge and a much younger man. They favored each other, but the man’s mouth didn’t contain an overabundance of teeth like the Judge’s, yet his two front teeth had a sizeable gap in between them. He was smiling in the photo, unlike the Judge, who was actually frowning, like he didn’t want to be photographed in the first place.

“Here.” The Judge handed the Batter a document, yellowed with age like the one Zacharie had.

> _Upon the request of Madame Vadar Eloha and Sire ________________, the WORLD hereby grants Le Juge Pablo Cœur de Lion as an official honorary Guardian from this day forward. Cœur de Lion has been permitted to bring along his brother, Valerie Cœur de Lion, as upon request. The Cœur de Lion’s will be exiled from WORLD II if any harmful behavior arises from either brother. No exceptions._
> 
> _Awaiting your reply._
> 
> _YOUR FRIEND,_  
>  _______._

“The Queen and her beau greatly desired for my and my brother’s presences here for reasons that I do not know, remember, or care for. I have this too.” He handed over a picture. It was of the Queen, wearing a flimsy floral dress instead of a uniform, a smiling Judge, and the man from the picture on the bookcase, smiling also. The Queen’s thin arms reached over the Judge and the man’s shoulders and the younger man was actually pressed into her side, while the Judge kept somewhat of a respectful distance. “I do not recall taking this photo in any way whatsoever.” He then swiftly took the paper and picture back from out of the Batter’s hands. “And with that, we should depart now.”

“Oh, you’re coming, Pablo?” The Batter quickly stood and Zacharie stood close by his side. “Finally tired of being a homebody?”

“Adventure calls my name as much as ethics call yours. Also, I do have some desire to speak to Dedan after all.”

“Ouch, that stings. Let’s go then!”

⁂

Leaving Zone 0 and entering Zone 1 was a stark departure for the Batter. He left behind litter and odor for trimmed plants and a glistening train station. He certainly felt welcomed to Elsen.

“This is clean,” he murmured to himself. Zacharie heard him and laughed. They were riding a metal trolley to the next location. Zacharie mentioned that Zone 1 was one of the largest zones and people often rode the small tram to get to here and there. They rode over the liquid plastic of ocean along with a few other workers that stared at the Batter, but remained silent.

“Pablo, Pablo, I forgot to tell you,” Zacharie said in between laughs, “that when I took the Batter to the Joas he said that everything was ‘unclean.’”

The Judge shrugged. “I have given up on the state of my residence ever since my personal group of cleaners ‘disappeared.’”

Zacharie was leaning into the Batter’s side, but the Batter didn’t push him away. “See, if you just hired some workers, th—”

The Judge cut him off with a swift, “Never.”

“You’re too small to be so stubborn.”

“You’re calling me small? Why, that’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

The Batter ignored their goodhearted banter. The Judge and Zacharie were obviously good friends and had known each other for a long time, but the Batter didn’t care about that. Whatever lied in Damien was on his mind. There had been _something_ useful in the Smoke Mines.

⁂

Smoke hung heavy in the air. The grey plumes were more visible in the sky than the clouds. The Batter still preferred the new environment though. The ground was green and lush with various grasses and blossoming plants. There was a small building off to the side, not as tall as the Judge’s and it didn’t look like housing. A worker ran out of the building and toward the group. His eyes were wide and he took a moment to bend over and gasp for air. He presented an item wrapped in plastic toward them once he caught his breath.

“Zacharie Hoya, you have received a special package from the Office as per request from the Plastic Administrations of Shachihata, Zone 1.” Zacharie thanked the worker and took the package. The worker gave the Batter and the Judge nervous glances and fidgeted throughout the entire ordeal and ran away again after Zacharie signed a paper.

“Zacharie Hoya?” The Batter asked. He cocked an eyebrow to the shorter man. “I thought you said your last name was Toya.”

“Hoya, Toya, to- _may_ -ato, to- _mah_ -to. Does it matter?” He pulled the plastic off the item. “Besides, I got you something.” He held up a baseball bat. Metal, aluminum to be more specific, and when the Batter took it, he couldn’t stop his initial frown. It was too small and unfamiliar in his worn hands. It didn’t fit the tired creases between his palms properly. And the bat had clearly seen better days. It was dented and scratched in a few places, but he shrugged and took it still.

“Thank you.” He didn’t have the right to be picky in such a desperate place.

“You’re welcome.” Zacharie stretched his hand out. “I hope you weren’t under the impression that I give my things away for free?” The Batter reached into his back pocket, opposite of where he kept his new permit, and handed over a few folded credits. “Thank you for your donation,” Zacharie said. They continued walking. The Batter loved the feeling of the warm pavement underneath his shoes. Anything was better than wallowing around in shit-infested dead grass.

“A little history lesson,” Zacharie said. He was still standing close by the Batter’s side while the Judge hung back a few steps. The Batter could hear him casually greet each worker they passed by. The workers all returned the Judge’s greetings, but their eyes were focused on the Batter, still no one commented on him yet. Zacharie wasn’t kidding when he said that the Batter was going to receive some “weird stares,” he stuck out like a sore thumb. “This bat,” Zacharie tapped the bat for emphasis, “is—or should I say _was—_ Harold Reginald’s. He was on the All-Star Team with you, do you remember him?” The Batter shook his head. “Figures. What _do_ you even remember about the team?”

“Not much.” The Batter ran his hand over a particularly deep dent in the bat. _HAROLD_ was written in big, bold letters across its side, but the name drew forth no memories. “I remember having to dye my hair and wearing matching uniforms. I still remember how to swing a bat and the mechanics of the game. I feel like I was an excellent player, but I do not remember playing any games or any of my teammates.”

“Well, of course you were an excellent player. You were on the All- _Star_ Team for a reason.” Zacharie nudged his arm. “Don’t stress, I get these random memories in between blocker dosages. When the effects wear off some, just tell me if you remember something and I’ll write it down for you before you forget it, okay?”

“Okay.” They were heading to the mines, the Batter assumed, but he had one last question: “What exactly are these ‘blockers’ you two continue to speak of?”

“Ah, is our newfound chum curious about blockers?” The Judge caught up with them. “I am glad you asked. Now, do not confuse beta blockers with the blockers we speak of. What you wish to know about are _being_ blockers. You have probably already deduced that these blockers block your memory, as the name entices, and you are correct. The Queen administers them in atmosphere in monthly dosages to keep her citizens at ease. Zone 1 and 2 receive the greatest degree of doses, but 0 and 3—not so much. It is obvious because the workers in 1 and 2 are so antsy and nervous, yet in 3 they are a little too laidback for my tastes.”

The Batter nodded. “I see.”

“Anyways, enough of that.” The Judge waved them off. “I’ll see you two on the other side.”

“You came all the way here just to wave us away?” Zacharie asked. They had reached the entrance of the mines. The workers stared (the Batter could feel the hard looks of hundreds of eyes on his back), but didn’t question their moves. “Pablo,” he whined. “Just come on.”

“And run the risk of soiling my freshly washed attire? I think not. As I had previously stated, we will reassemble on the other side. I have people I wish to speak to. _Au revoir_ , until we meet again.” The Judge walked off then.

Zacharie crossed his arms. He silently walked into the mines and the Batter followed closely after.

⁂

The Smoke Mines were dark and dismal, as expected. More smoke accumulated belowground than above. The workers below wore orange hard hats, but no masks. They breathed heavier than the workers aboveground, but no one conversed with each other. It was simply _odd_ to see so many people so focused on their work to the Batter.

One of the workers let down his tool and faced the newcomers. The Batter watched him give an audible sigh as he walked over to the entrance. His work clothes were soiled with soot and there were dark bruises underneath his eyes. The skin of his cheeks and across his nose was reddened from the laborious work, but he walked up to them as though it was nothing. He only came up to the Batter’s waist, so he was forced to look up at the man. With his round chin held high, he said, “Um… welcome… to the Smoke Mines. Uh, visitors?”

Zacharie patted the worker’s shoulder. “It’s okay. He won’t bite.”

“I… I, um…” The worker looked off to the side. Everyone was facing the walls, hard at work, ejecting smoke from the ground and into the clouded atmosphere, not paying attention to anything but themselves. “W-Who, um, who sent you?”

“No one,” the Batter answered.

“N-No one? Not even the Queen?”

“No. I sent myself here.”

“Oh, uh, well…” The worker looked down at his feet. “Did D-Dedan send you?”

“No. I sent myself here,” the Batter repeated. “No one ‘sent’ me anywhere.”

“O-Oh okay, okay. I see. Well…” The man bit his lip and looked off to the side. He was painful to talk to, the Batter decided. Hopefully not every worker was like him. “Dedan said that someone might be coming to, uh, exterminate the, um, intruders and I thought that m-maybe it was you? Uh, but since it’s not, you’re not, um, welcome in the mines. I-I’m sorry.”

The Batter gripped the handle of his bat. “I can do it.” The worker’s eyes darted up.

“Huh?”

“Where are the intruders? I can exterminate them.”

“Uh, um, uh…” The worker began to wring his hands together. “I-I shouldn’t be talking to you,” the man whispered.

“It’s okay,” Zacharie reassured again. “What do you want?”

“I want him to get rid of the intruders. Dedan said that someone was coming to get rid of them a long time ago, but they’re still here.”

“The intruders?” The Batter asked.

“Y-Yes. J-Just, um, go quickly. We have an inspection today and if Dedan sees you…” The worker shook his head and hurried back to where he had been mining.

The Batter and Zacharie moved past the dirt and grime and the light of the workers’ helmets to the true filth and darkness inside of the mines.

⁂

“Maybe I should’ve grabbed a flashlight, huh?”

Zacharie had grabbed the Batter’s arm, the one holding the bat, once it became pitch black. The Batter just used his free arm to touch and navigate along the walls. He was trying his best not to walk in circles, but he was truly marching on by literal blind faith. Even though he had never been in the mines before (from what he could recollect, anyway), something felt _off_ about them, but he wasn’t sure what exactly. Perhaps it was just the thought of the intruders that the worker had spoken of.

But he didn’t find any intruders; just a ray of dull light shining through a hole above them. Zacharie ascended the ladder first before the Batter climbed it. How anticlimactic. He was hoping for some type of battle to commence while they had walked through. He would push Zacharie behind him, swing at the intruder through the darkness, and then listen to the merchant gush about how heroic he was, fighting an invisible foe like that.

Instead they happened upon a barn. The grass wasn’t trimmed on this side. It grew wild and tickled the Batter’s ankles from the short space of exposed skin between the bottom of his trousers and the beginning of his socks. “Now we’re in Pental,” Zacharie said. “I guess there weren’t any intruders down in the mines after all.”

“Maybe they’re in there.” The Batter pointed to the barn. It looked like it had a fresh paintjob, unlike the Joas. There were a few workers on the outside, wearing too-big overalls and no hard hats, that were digging their bare hands into the innards of what looked to be a calf that had been sliced in half. One worker dug out the intestines of the animal and tossed them aside for another worker to pick up while another was picking out the bones and neatly lining them up.

“You can go by yourself,” Zacharie said. He leaned against the fence where a few live cattle roamed, chewing on grass, their moves sluggish. Some of the cows were very plump while another few were downright skeletal. A worker with wide eyes and a clipboard followed behind a particular cow that had ribs jaunting out of its black-and-white hind. “I’ll just… hang around here until you get back.”

The Batter moved toward him. The mask that his companion wore was proving to be bothersome. The Batter never realized how important seeing someone’s expressions was. And Zacharie only made matters worse with his cool and collected way of speaking. Whatever the masked man was hiding, he was hiding it well. The Judge seemed to put all of his emotions on display with his beaming smile to pointed frowns and unconscious quirky little mannerisms. Zacharie did none of those. The way he leaned against the fence was all too casual.

“Are you afraid?” The Batter guessed. Zacharie shrugged.

“Maybe I am a little afraid. But I know that you, great Batter, will protect me.” Zacharie chuckled. “Be back soon. I’ll be waiting.” The Batter nodded and left it at that.

⁂

The little busted bat was awkward to hold at first, but the Batter got the hang of it quickly. Another bleary-eyed worker gave him the same spiel that the one in the mines had, but he was quicker to invite the Batter into the barn.

The Batter might have smirked to himself, he wasn’t sure. He was too busy paying mind to the sight before him. _These_ were the intruders. Finally. The Batter didn’t hesitate to walk up to them, but something about them was eerily familiar.

“Ah, ah,” one of them said, the largest in the group. They were nothing like the workers, but they were still different from the Judge, Zacharie, and the Batter himself. “If it ain’t good ol’ K.C. in the flesh and blood.” The large men laughed, laughed, laughed. They all wore uniforms (in dire need of a good wash) different from the ones in the photograph. Their clothes were ripped and stained with dirt, and the buttons had popped off the largest one’s jacket, but they looked so familiar that it was actually hurting the Batter’s mind trying – forcing – himself to try and remember. Who were these people?

“Ah, ah,” another one of them said. “K.C. doesn’t give a shit about us. He’s too busy playin’ baseball now! Lookie, he even stole ol’ Harold’s bat!” They laughed again. Their breaths reeked of smoke.

“Hey batter, batter, hey batter, batter, swing!” They all stomped their feet. “What’cha gonna do with that? Hit us outta of the park?”

“You ain’t shit no more, K.C.!”

“Yeah, fuck off. You haven’t been anything the day you let ol’ Queenie ruin your life _and_ the cause.”

The Batter felt a deep, unsettling anger bubble up inside him, but he couldn’t understand why. Who were these people? Why were they calling him names? Why were they laughing at him?

_He didn’t understand._

_He didn’t understand._

_He didn’t understand._

But he did understand how to swing a bat, and more importantly, _at them_. He swung with all of his might at the larger one, knocking him square into the side of his head, and he wanted to laugh _at them_ when he heard the sick connect of aluminum to skull and watched the big man fall to the dirty barn floor in a heap of blood and manure.

The other men stopped laughing. They went after him. The moves were automatic to the Batter. He had put his mind on autopilot and let the anger fester and take over. He was seeing red – literally. It was everywhere, staining his white clothes, spraying across the floor. The men were weak. His mind labeled them as unworthy opponents. He managed to get them all down within minutes. They were too clumsy and obviously weren’t ready to fight. To think a group of large men would so easily defeated by a busted up, aluminum baseball bat. How embarrassing.

“WHAT IN FUCK’S NAME DO YOU MEAN THE EXTERMINATOR’S HERE? _I’M_ THE FUCKING EXTERMINATOR, YOU STUPID SACK OF COW SHIT!”

The Batter’s head swung to the entrance of the barn. A worker was speaking to someone just outside of his field of vision. The Batter moved toward the entrance and stood by the side, just out of sight also.

“S-S-Sir, I-I, um, h-he said that—”

“WHAT _THE FUCK_ ARE YOU GOING ON ABOUT?”

“S-S-Sir, I-I-I-I—”

“Shut up! I’m fucking done with you! I’m not paying you so you can just piss around and stutter all day.”

“B-B-But sir, I-I—”

“Fuck off! You’re fired!” The worker stood stock still. The Batter could see the pure confusion behind the man’s eyes. “Did I fucking stutter? Get lost. You can go anywhere as long as it ain’t here. I don’t give a fuck.”

The worker’s body began to tremble, but before he could open his mouth a hand was wrapped around his neck. The Batter didn’t move a muscle as he watched the long tanned fingers squeeze and longer fingernails dig into the flesh of the helpless worker’s neck. The worker’s face turned red and his eyes began to bulge as he was picked up in the air and tossed aside like garbage, out of view.

The Batter recognized that the hand. It was the same one that had been touching the woman’s shoulder from the photo.

The owner of the hand came into view now. He stood in front of the barn entrance, observing the pile of bloodied bodies that the Batter had created. He was certainly tall and extremely so. The top of his bald head nearly touched the barn entrance. And his the state of his teeth had managed to worsen since the photograph. They were everywhere. The Batter couldn’t believe it was possible that someone could have a worse overbite than the Judge, but here was living proof.

The man was wearing a uniform, different from the men in the barn and yet still different from the ones in the photograph, that was unbuttoned at the top, showing off his muscular form. His boots were laced tight and reached the knee. He still had his various medallions and decorations across his shoulders. Pride reeked off of him, enough to make the Batter’s nose wrinkle.

He waited. He waited for the man to come in and discover him. He gripped his bat readily. It had managed to become a little more bruised from battle, but he was ready. The man’s size didn’t intimidate him. The Batter was tall and strong too.

The fight never happened though. The man huffed, muttered more obscenities underneath his breath, and left. His boots made a heavy noise against the pavement as he went. Once again: anticlimactic. The Batter’s hands shook from around his bat. He needed more action. The fight with the men was enough to spike his adrenaline to new heights. He needed to experience that feeling again sooner rather than later.

Zacharie came rushing in. He only glanced at the bodies before he walked over to the Batter. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“You’re covered in blood.” Zacharie moved to pull off his backpack but he stopped himself. “You can change later. Did Dedan see you?”

“Is that the name of the man who just strangled his worker?”

“Yeah, that’s him. Guardian of Zone 1.”

“No, he did not see me. I was hoping he would though.”

“Why? So he could strangle you too? Don’t be stupid.” The Batter wasn’t sure how to feel about being fussed over. “All you have is an old bat. You’re lucky that you managed to fight so many guys with it, but you can’t use this old thing against Dedan. And you’re not strong enough to fight him alone, _amigo_. Wait until you get help.”

“Help?”

“Yes, help. Pablo’s getting you some and I'm searching for more old bats to order. For now, hold your horses, geez, you’re an eager one.” Zacharie looked back at the bodies. The Batter wanted to see the other’s face. Was he horrified? Sickened? He needed to know. “These were the intruders?”

“I believe so.”

“Look through their pockets.” The Batter took a step towards them, but looked at Zacharie. He hadn’t been expecting that.

“You want me to pillage money off of a pile of corpses?”

“I actually wasn’t thinking about money for once, but yeah, if you see any credits, keep ‘em. They’ll be useful. But see if they have anything important on them like notes or documents. That might be helpful.”

The Batter got to work. He rolled the few smaller bodies off and looked through the largest man’s pockets first. He took a moment to really study the man’s face. Dead or alive, he couldn’t seem to put a name on him. Oh well. The man had stacks upon stacks of credits in his pockets, but no papers or permits.

The Batter only happened upon more money until he reached the last body – the bloodiest one. Perhaps he had gone a bit overboard with the last man standing. He had bashed his skull over and over again with the butt of the bat until the anger inside of him let out. The sound of the man’s bones breaking and skin tearing did wondrous things to the Batter. Maybe he should have been concerned over the fact that he had thoroughly enjoyed pummeling the man to death, but if Zacharie wasn’t worried, then why should he be?

The man didn’t have any money, just a small note. The paper only managed to collect a few drops of blood, so the writing was still legible. He handed the paper to Zacharie.

“’January and Magnolia – mines. Midnight,’” he read aloud. He turned the card over, but nothing was on the back. “Hm.” He pocketed the paper. “Looks like we’ll have to wait until midnight. Snack?”

“I’m hungry now.”

“Of course you are.”

Zacharie pulled out the breakfast packet that the Batter had discarded that morning. The Batter chewed through the tough meat and steadily slurped the water-like substance in deep thought. January and Magnolia sounded familiar. The initials the men had said, “K.C.,” sounded familiar also.

Zacharie’s voice became background noise as the Batter’s thoughts took over. Yes, yes, some things were coming back to him now.


	3. Yellow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _OUR LIVES ARE MISERABLE, LABORIOUS, AND SHORT_

With Zacharie so close, the Batter could feel his companion’s breaths begin to grow raspy and coughs beginning racking his body. Dust kicked everywhere underneath their feet as they moved deeper and deeper into the mines. The small electrical lights that lined up the walls were becoming few and far between, so the Batter could only catch glimpses of how Zacharie’s shoulders were beginning to slouch, but  he could almost feel the heaviness of it all on his own shoulders through the darkness.

The air was humid, _too_ humid. It was like they were walking through an actual cloud of smoke or a haze almost. Smoke was frequent and workers were occasional. They were different than the busy workers in the front. The workers in the depths of the Smoke Mines stood and stared at the two with their mouths hung open behind, loudly gasping for air, dark rings around their eyes. They didn’t speak, didn’t ask about “who sent them.” They just watched with their unblinking eyes while still hacking away at the walls.

Once they passed the third worker and Zacharie coughs turned from wet to dry, the Batter stopped. “You should go.”

“What? And leave you unassisted? That’s not gonna happen.”

“You can’t breathe.”

“It’ll pass.”

Zacharie coughed again, a longer spell. No, they couldn’t go on like this. “It won’t. Go back to the entrance and I will meet you and the Judge there.” Zacharie looked up at him. The sound of the workers’ tools buzzing and smoke being released into the atmosphere filled the gap of silence in between them. Zacharie touched his arm. His fingers squeezed around his wrist for a split second before he backed away.

“I guess there’s no argument here.” He reached into his pocket and pressed something into the Batter’s hand. “See you on the other side, friend.” And Zacharie turned back around.

The Batter looked down at his hand. It was the Luck Ticket that they had stumbled upon once upon a time. The Batter tucked it into his back pocket before continuing on.

⁂

There was a circle of lights at the destination. The Batter held his bat closer to his body. Anticipation was heavy in the air, heavier than the smoke. He felt it buzz warmly in his chest – no, perhaps _that_ was the smoke – and his fingers tapped across the bat handle.

“What’s that?” The voice was soft, papery sounding somehow, and coming from the left. The Batter turned, bat poised and ready for action. “Who’s there?”

“It’s him, it’s really him,” another voice said, stronger, coming from the right. “K.C. is here.” The Batter faced the new voice. It was a man with dark eyes, downy cheeks, and had inky strands of hair loose from a bun tied together by a string on the top of his head. The man’s clothes – another uniform – was caked with dirt. He must have been lying on the ground recently.

“K.C.?” The first voice asked. The Batter turned around again. A taller man was slumped against the ground, three cigarettes were tucked in his mouth and all of them were pumping smoke by the second. He was bald and his eyes were milky. He was wearing one half of a tie. “Thought he had finally kicked the bucket, but I guess miracles do come true.” One of the cigarettes slipped from his mouth and rolled by his feet. “You know, until ‘miracles’ were outlawed.”

“Are you two January and Magnolia?” The seated man jumped to his feet.

“What type of ques— _obviously_ we are.” The man stood taller than the Batter, but he wasn’t intimidated. They didn’t have any obvious weapons on them and the Batter was more skilled, more lethal. He could take on anyone if he tried. “Are you senile? Yeah, you gotta be. You _got to be_ fucking senile. This is the last time I’m introducing myself to you. We’re Janus and,” he pointed to the other man, “Magnol. Janus and Magnol. January and Magnolia. Can you get that through your fucking head already? Jesus, man.”

The Batter didn’t like being spoken to like he was some kind of insolent child. He raised his bat again and swung. Pure rage covered everything. The sound of the bat connecting and breaking bone had to be the most beautiful thing that the Batter ever heard; more mellifluous than the sound of Zacharie lightly tapping against the bench. January screamed, hollered, tried to run for his life, but the Batter was too quick. He snatched Magnolia by the back of the shirt and it took one hit, right against the side of the skull, to end him, but the Batter kept going, kept bringing the bat down on the man until his neck was nothing but a tangled mess.

The Batter stood and looked over his creation. Not as much blood as the men in the barn had produced, but it would suffice. He kicked Magnolia’s head until the corpse’s neck gave and snapped and rolled by his feet. He looked down at the unruly mess he made. How violent. How gory. How messy. How wonderful.

The thought of Zacharie made him come down from his high. The soaring in his stomach dropped suddenly. He searched through the men’s pockets with haste. More money, one note in Magnolia’s breast pocket. 

> _K.C. is coming out soon. Come to Bismark for the rest of the meeting and bring the rest of the guys. Watch out for Valzong. We look forward to seeing you all again. If you can, bring Flesh. Thank you for your time. Glory to the Federation. —Porter._

⁂

“There is no need to be so concerned over my well-being.” Zacharie took the Batter’s hand after he handed him a fresh tunic and pair of trousers. Blood was getting on the merchant’s sleeve, but he didn’t seem to care.

“I know. I know that you’re perfectly capable of defending yourself, but it can’t stop me from worrying. I’m a bit a worrier.” Zacharie let go of him then. “It’s a problem. I can’t help but care about people. I like to think of it as one thing that the Queen can’t get rid of about me. Well, if she manages to find a way to get rid of my authenticity then I would just be like the rest of those guys.” Zacharie offhandedly gestured toward the couple of workers that stood off in the distance, watching them with the usual wide eyes and gaping mouths. “Yeah, I’ll still be human, still be breathing, but I wouldn’t be _feeling_. See, that’s what sets apart from…” Zacharie shook his head with a chuckle. “Let me get off my soapbox. You probably don’t care too much for emotional affairs, do you?”

“I…” The Batter peeled off the stained clothes from his back. His nose didn’t upturn from the smell, but it was particularly strong. It reminded him of the glorious odor of Zone 0. Almost. Dried blood covered his arms. He tried to brush away the flakes as he casted the soiled shirt aside. He sat down to properly untie his shoes and remove his pants. “I can care.” Zacharie’s mask was pointed toward his bare, reddened legs, but the Batter wasn’t sure if the man was blatantly staring at him or looking elsewhere.

Zacharie chuckled. “It’s nice to know that you _can_ care, but I asked if you _did_ care.” The Batter pulled on the new pair of pants and retied his shoes with two nice, little knots. He didn’t bother to button his tunic up and left his tank-top on display. There was just too much heat in the mines. He wondered if Zacharie was hot underneath that sweater and mask. He had to be.

Zacharie handed the Batter his bat back when he reached out for it. “I am not sure how to answer your question.” They continued on. It was nice to get a breath of fresh (well, fresher than the mines) air again and Zacharie was no longer coughing.

“You’re really embodying the ‘strong, silent type,’ you know? Nothing seems to really get through to you.” Zacharie shrugged. “Or maybe I’m just assuming too much. We are only newly acquainted. There’s still a lot for us to discover about each other.” The Batter assumed that Zacharie was smiling. He imagined that his companion to have a wide grin, one to match his laughs, and nicely aligned teeth. He couldn’t picture anything too excessive like the Judge’s and Dedan’s. Just a nice simple pair of teeth would do.

“That is true.” The Batter admittedly was interested in learning some about Zacharie, and vice versa. “There is still much to learn.”

Zacharie pointed toward the building the station. “There’s Pablo.” The Judge was leaning against the building. His tie was a different color. “Hey Pablo!”

“Greetings.” The Judge frowned. “Do my eyes deceive me, or is that blood that stains our new acquaintance’s attire?”

“Yup,” Zacharie answered. “Things got… a little messy.”

“I am unsure about what to do with this information.” The Judge bit his thumb. “I am going to choose to ignore this new development for now, but I will not forget this.” The Judge waggled a finger towards the Batter’s face. “You are not supposed to be dangerous.”

“They were just intruders, Pabs. It’s okay.” The Judge nodded, but he still looked upset. He turned around. “We’re going back to the station?”

“Correction: you two may go back to the station if you so desire, I will be elsewhere.”

“Where’s elsewhere?”

“Home, and then perhaps in Zone 2. Neither Japhet or Valerie has cared to contact me and I am growing concerned.” The trains were pulling up. The Judge outstretched his hand toward the Batter. “Until we meet again.” The Batter shook it heartedly.

He caught the Judge take out a handkerchief and wipe the hand he shook when he looked out of the train window during their departure.

⁂

The afterglow of the night and stars were making way for the sun. It didn’t look natural somehow. In the back of the Batter’s vacant mind he somehow recalled that somewhere in the past he saw a different sunrise, a different sunset – and it was nothing like this one. A lot of things didn’t make sense. The Batter didn’t understand how Zacharie just naturally fit against his side as they rode the train. His mind was buzzing with new information: who the men in the barns and the mines were, why they recognized him and he couldn’t recognize them, how two people could fit together like two fitting puzzle pieces even if they hardly knew each other.

“I have a feeling that Dedan isn’t going to give you a permit to Zone 2.” The Batter knew what was wrong now: the sun wasn’t streaking any colors across the sky and the clouds held no weight. Everything was the same hue. No pinks, oranges, and yellows like the image in the back of mind wanted it to be. “So maybe you might have to, you know, take _other means_ to get there.”

“Are you suggesting that I kil—?”

“No, I didn’t suggest anything! But if you insist, once again, I can’t stop you. Whatever decision you make, I’ll stand by it.” Zacharie shifted against him. “Pablo is going to be a little late on getting the help. I think you freaked him out earlier with the blood and stuff, so he forgot to give it to you. Fun fact: gore makes Pablo squeamish, so no more around him. And sorry that we have to take the long way to Shachihata. Seems like my lungs can’t take the shortcut through the mines anymore.”

“Health is important.”

“That sounds like something they’d plaster on a bench somewhere. Too bad nobody can afford Purity Bonds anymore.”

⁂

The Batter was oddly restless. Zacharie wasn’t kidding when he said that they were taking the “long way.” Zacharie only sat, his head moving along with the Batter’s pacing. “So,” Zacharie started off. The Batter stopped in his tracks, all ears. “I’ll map out Zone 1 for you real quick: this is the Elsen Train Station. And then we have Damien to the south, Pentel to the east, Shachihata to the north, and Alma’s center. Well, technically when you think about it Alma is a little east than Pentel.”

“We are currently traveling north?”

_“Sí.”_

“Hm?”

“Obviously.” Zacharie leaned against the seat, the first time he had relaxed since the Batter had stood up. “Um, I know that Dedan has an office in the Administrations and there are, uh, one-hundred thousand floors, I think, including the basement, so have fun with that.” Zacharie laughed at the sight of the Batter’s shoulders slumping. “Just kidding. I’m here to help out. All that matters are the ground level, the roof, the Secret Service—” he winked “—the Property Office, and the Postal Office. Oh, and Dedan has an office too, but I believe that he prefers keeping his work life in Shachihata and home life in Alma.” Zacharie shrugged. “But that’s hearsay. You’ll have to make some confirmations yourself, if you know what I mean.”

The Batter nodded. Silence developed between the two of them again. “I want to speak with Dedan.”

“Um, of course, you kind of have to.”

“Yes. I only wish to speak with him.”

“Oh, no fighting. Okay, Mr. Pacifist.” Zacharie chuckled and sat up straight again. The train was coming to a stop. “Okay.”

⁂

An elevator. The Batter tilted his head to the side. Interesting. It felt like he was still underground, sans the smoke. A worker – simple suit and tie, not as wide eyes – stood by a desk next to the elevator. He straightened up when he saw the couple approaching.

“What…?” The worker cleared his throat. “I, uh, what… how’d you get here? You can’t—you can’t see down there… down…”

“Faith guides my steps.” The worker’s eyes widened. The Batter could hear Zacharie sigh.

“What… what is faith?”

The Batter looked over the desk. “Me.” There was nothing on it or behind it. The man really was just standing by an empty desk. “I am faith.”

“I love the God complex, Batter,” Zacharie said, approaching them. He leaned towards the worker. “Hi, buddy. We’re just going to use the elevator for a bit, we’re not causing any trouble.” The worker gulped.

“O-Okay.” The worker reached toward the elevator. “B-But, I-I don’t think I’m supposed to—”

“It’s okay,” Zacharie cut off. “We’re just checking if Dedan’s in today.”

“H-He’s in, I-I think, b-b-but he might be leaving s-soon.”

“Can we visit him?”

“Um…”

The Batter didn’t have patience for formalities. He pushed past the worker and pushed the elevator button himself. The worst time is wasted time. The button lit up, dinged, and the gears of the machine started shifting.

The worker grabbed the Batter’s arm. “S-Stop!” The Batter shoved him off, bat poised. “Y-You can’t—you can’t go—” The man was reaching into his pocket suddenly. No. No hesitation needed. The Batter swung without so much as a blink beforehand. He caught how Zacharie didn’t even flinch when the worker fell with a thud to the ground. Red blossomed against the man’s pale skin. The Batter hit him again – straight in the chest, through the ribs – because he didn’t want to hear the sound of agony. Not now. He just wanted to see the offices and get on his merry way.

⁂

Purple was a familiar hue. The smell of paper and crisp plastic was inviting. The sound of (possibly hundreds of) people murmuring and mumbling and sorting through file upon file was… empowering? Or was that perhaps too strong of a word? No matter. The Batter had more important things to worry about of the moment, like where Dedan’s office was.

The building was like a maze, and even with Zacharie’s assistance it was going to take a while to get from place to place. Sometimes the elevator seized movement and the lights would burn out, and there were a few times when the machine would randomly stop before their chosen destination and open its doors prematurely. The Batter, being the very diligent and observant soul that he was, investigated each floor they stopped at just in case. But he heard the same sound of papers shuffling and utterances on each floor:

“Form 72947, stamp 39043.”

“Form 97963, stamp 31294.”

“Form 64281, stamp 73038.”

“Form 97236, stamp 14406.”

“Form 69065, stamp 31640.”

“Form 74314, stamp 4610.”

“Form 72546, stamp 13232.”

“Form 48131, stamp 12116.”

“Form 59087, stamp 93102.”

“Form 22326, stamp 9515.”

“Form 87666, stamp 2584.”

“Form 86327, stamp 51459.”

“Form 99369, stamp 60870.”

“Dear God, make it stop.”

The Batter stopped, his finger poised midair in front of the elevator button. He turned toward the voice. The man was a little different from the rest. He was slightly taller, his tie was a shade darker, and the skin of his fingers was decorated all over with paper cuts. The man’s dark eyes leered toward the Batter’s only momentarily before he muttered, “Form 2584, stamp 10258,” and carried his bundle of papers to another corner of the office.

“Find anything?” Zacharie asked once the doors closed. He didn’t stray from his side of the elevator, while the Batter had a habit of pacing left and right, moving with the slow motions of the machine.

“I found a worker that said something other than a form and stamp number.”

“Ooh, really? What did he say?”

“’Dear God, make it stop.’”

There was a faint, tinny noise coming from the ceiling, but the Batter wouldn’t call it music. The sound suddenly grew quieter as they made their ascension. Zacharie caught the Batter’s attention again with a crisp clearing of the throat. The Batter glanced at Zacharie’s neck. It was barely visible from the sweater the merchant wore, but it was clear that it was damaged, but the Batter always grew too preoccupied to pay it any mind.

“Did they say a number afterwards?”

“’Form 2584, stamp 10258,’ as my memory recalls.”

“Excellent.” Zacharie reached over and punched the form number into the elevator’s floor pad. The machine cranked and whined at suddenly being forced to take a command, but still managed to obey (somehow). “We’re off to the races.”

⁂

The elevator dinged and displayed an emptied room, devoid of any life, sound, and emotion. Instead of metal tables lined up in nice and neat rows, there were busted chairs and broken table legs scattered about. There were yellowed papers here and there. The Batter took a glance at the one by his foot and saw that it was filled with numbers and things about plastic and shipments made around the WORLD only. Zacharie’s name was frequent on the list – along with “Hoya” instead of “Toya.”

Zacharie stepped out of the elevator for the first time. He kicked a paper aside and sat down in the only chair that hadn’t been toppled over. “There are so many floors here that it feels like more are abandoned than occupied at this point.”

“Do you know why?” The Batter began to sort through the tables, rummage through the papers. There had to be _something_ of good use.

Zacharie shrugged. “Various reasons, you know: safety hazards—it isn’t uncommon for smoke to completely pollute one section of the building to the point where good ol’ Dedan has to vacate and abandon it, um, if there’s too many diseased workers in one area then the floor’s quarantined and the people are basically forced to die and rot in the office, and then sometimes the workers just leave under mysterious reasons that go ‘unspecified’ and ‘undisclosed.’” Zacharie chuckled, but there was something different about the sound. “For future reference, my friend, if a situation is ‘undisclosed’ then there’s a ninety or so percent chance that ‘something’ happened to a worker while under a Guardian’s direct supervision. Enoch and Dedan have the files upon files of undisclosed cases in the workplace that Pablo has to wave off every few seconds.”

Aha! The Batter spotted a box hidden away behind a mass of broken table legs. “How did you know to enter the form number into the elevator so it would take us to this floor?” The lid of the metal box was ice cold.

“Just a hunch. If a worker says something that sounds a bit… _out of order_ to you, remember it. The majority of the citizens here are just industrious robots, so the minority—like you and I—are a force to be reckoned with.” Zacharie tapped the side of his mask as the Batter finally managed to tug the box open. “It’s a disease called groupthink my friend, and it’s a pandemic that has been taking the WORLD by storm ever since it came into existence.”

“’Groupthink,’” the Batter parroted back. His fingers froze underneath the lid of the box. Words washed through his mind like a flood suddenly: _groupthink, doublethink, bandwagon effect, group flow, group polarization, groupshift, mob mentality, herd behavior, “…you’re all sheep who cover their ears when they steal bells—back to the farmhouse with you all,” manipulation, power…_

Zacharie was on the edge of his seat. _“¿Sí?”_

The lid of the box shut and tightened around the Batter’s fingers. He jumped up, bat ready. The box was shaking. “This receptacle is impure!” He immediately smashed it – full force. Zacharie jumped back into his seat. Smoke emitted from the box and the Batter pushed it open properly with the toe of his shoe. Shining bright in the blackness was a Luck Ticket.

“I admire your quick reflexes, _El Bateador_.” Zacharie stood and took his turn to kick the box. A small, orb-shaped object toppled out. “But it was merely just smoke to scare the average workman away. Possibly poisonous, but nothing that this Luck Ticket can’t fix.” The Batter collected the orb and placed it in his pocket before walking back to the elevator.

⁂

“Floor 10258!” Zacharie took the Batter’s hand as the elevator stopped for the umpteenth time. “I feel like this is it! The energy that I’m getting from this floor is extremely inviting.”

The Batter looked around. There were no workers around, but the floor didn’t look strictly abandoned. There were boxes piled high everywhere, to the point where it was almost mazelike. Other than that, the room smelled the same, looked the same, had the same energy as the other floors (minus the abandoned few). “The energy has not changed. This floor is as lackluster as the last.”

Zacharie squeezed his hand as they got off. “Ah, you’re no fun, you spoilsport.” He halted in his tracks suddenly. The Batter looked up. A worker was just standing there, in front of a pile of boxes, blocking their way. The Batter let go of Zacharie’s hand and pushed the smaller man behind him.

“Workman,” the Batter called out. The man’s eyes were unfocused and he swayed from side to side, as if he was about to lose balance and tip over at any moment. The man’s mouth hung open once he realized that he had visitors but he remained speechless. The only sound coming from him were the loud, nasally breaths that were beginning to speed up and echo around the room. The Batter pushed Zacharie a step back and approached the worker. “Workman,” he repeated, “are there intruders on this level?”

“I’m…” The worker leaned back against the boxes and clawed at the side of his face. “I-I’m…” The Batter stared at the angry red marks stretching across the man’s cheeks as the worker looked back up at them. “I-I’m… I’m…”

“Say it, worker,” the Batter commanded. The worker looked down at his shoes. The leather shined in the low lights. There was shoeshine about?

“I-I’m afraid…” The worker’s hand – knuckles red – began to reach toward his back pocket, but the Batter was already two steps ahead.

“Of what?” He asked as he raised his bat.

“Of yo—” The Batter brought his bat down upon the worker’s skull. It cracked open like an egg (was there even such thing as eggs anymore?) and out forth came the yolk that the Batter so desired. The sight of the spilt brains of a delinquent was enough to spike the Batter’s desire again. He needed more. More bloodshed. More adrenaline. Less groupthink. Less peace.

The sound of footsteps rushed over to them. Another worker, more focused in the eyes, ran to them and nearly slipped in the blood of his coworker. The worker’s eyes darted back and forth between the body and the bloodied Batter before he took off again.

All the Batter had to say was, “Strange,” before he reached back to take Zacharie’s hand again.

“Ah, you’re getting blood on my sweater sleeve!” Zacharie shook him off. He wiped his sleeve on a nearby box. “I have no more clothes handy right now, so please try not to get too dirty.”

“I cannot adhere to your request.”

They quieted again and followed the sound of scurrying feet through the boxes. How sad that the poor worker was just giving himself away so easily. It was almost as if he _wanted_ for the big, bad Batter to get him.

They found him again at a table blocking another elevator door. The man’s hands were clasped together in front him and shook terribly. There were tears running down his face. The Batter wanted to know the full extent of his impact. He could make men cry, tremble, and scurry like flies with a speck of blood and a glare of the eye. Surely, no man needed that great of power.

_Are you just a mere man though? Or were you destined for something great?_

The Batter looked down at his hands as Zacharie let charms roll off his tongue to calm the worker. Fresh and dried blood coated across his palms and caked underneath his fingernails. The Batter clenched his hands together and grasped them around his bat. His impact could be more than just great if he continued on the path he was going.

“I-I-I am t-terribly sorry.” The Batter’s ears perked up. “I-I can’t let you pass w-w-with—without the c-code, sir—I mean, sirs, I-I am terribly s-sorry.”

Zacharie drummed his fingers across the table. “681452,” he rattled off. The worker’s watery eyes widened. He took out a slip of a paper from behind him – movements automatic – and threw it against the table. “Was I right?” Zacharie asked.

“Y-Ye-Yes, b-but—! I-I can’t! I can’t let you pass! Y-You!” He shot up in his seat and pointed to the Batter. The Batter only raised an eyebrow. “You hurt my colleague!” What an inconvenience. The worker’s sorrowful eyes filled with regret as he reached into his back pocket. “I-I don’t want to die,” he whispered. Too late. The Batter, always quick on the drawl, was already ready with a furious swing. He knocked the man out of the chair and across the table. He hit the man’s hand again at the wrist. It was surely broken.

“May you rejoice in finding a new citizenship in Heaven, lost soul.”

The man’s broken hand twitched. Blood poured from his nose and his mouth and rushed down his bruised lips and chin and onto the table and slip of paper. “Is Alma Heaven?” A tooth fell from his mouth and bounced off the tabletop and by Zacharie’s foot. “I… always wanted to go there.” His eyes stayed opened.

Zacharie pushed the Batter toward the door. “We have to be close,” was all he said. “I can practically hear Dedan now.”

⁂

“Why are we traveling to the roof?”

“Because this elevator is faster than the other one, so we should be on the roof right about—” the elevator dinged “—now. I think I see Pablo!” Zacharie patted the Batter’s shoulder before he bounded out of the elevator. The Judge was near? The Batter rested his bloodied bat against the elevator doors and took off his stained jersey. The breeze and cool smoke made his hair stand on end. Goosebumps rose on his skin.

The Batter spotted Zacharie on the other side of the roof, slowly sneaking up behind the Judge. He grabbed the Judge’s shoulders and the man nearly jumped out of his skin. “Zounds!” His small hand clasped the front of his shirt, over his heart. “You are well aware that my petite body cannot occupy such high amounts of consternation all at once! Zacharie, have I not warned you against doing such childish activities in my presence? Stop laughing at once!”

Zacharie moved his thumb over the eyes of his mask as if he was wiping away tears. “I just love your reactions. You’re so dramatic.” The Judge straightened out his shirt and huffed. His eyes darted to the Batter and his eyebrow quirked – if the Batter blinked, he would have missed it.

“Salutations, friend. Have you tired of exercising your wrist with your righteous bat?” The Batter shook his head. “Ah, ah, I see. Well, I do request that you refrain from further violence unless it is truly necessary.” The Batter nodded. “Thank you. Here, this is for you. I do admit I feel the slightest bit of hesitance pulsating throughout my amygdala as I simply hand over this possibly great power to you, a stranger, but another part of me deeply wishes to trust you. So,” the Judge reached into his pocket, “with this I now bestow upon thee some assistance in your humble quest for knowledge and reminiscence.” The Judge handed forth a white box-shaped object. The Batter turned it over and over in his hands. A peeling sticker featuring the word ALPHA was across the front and there was a clip on the back. “You looked perplexed. Have you not seen an object like this before?”

“No.”

“Well, this is a handheld transceiver: a hand-held, portable, two-way radio transceiver. You may call for aid at any time and it will be delivered. I only know very minimal information on these, as it is not atypical for the rest of my fellow Guardians to keep me out of the loop, but I do know that you can receive help of some sort using this. I am not completely sure. You may test it out to your heart’s desire.” The Judge wringed his hands together. “Now, I recommend you rest and test out this device before you meet with Dedan.” The Batter nodded. He didn’t feel fatigued in any way, but rest seemed best. Without a word, he walked back to the elevator doors and leaning against his bat, he closed his eyes – his eyelids felt pretty heavy on second thought – and waited for sleep to take him. It wasn’t too far away.

“You know, Pablo, back in my day they were called walkie-talkies.”

“How absurd. Anyways, how is your health?”

“It’s fine.”

“Oh, yes?”

“Just fine. I don’t need anything right now, Pabs. It’s okay.”

⁂

In the back of the Batter’s mind, he knew that his dreams were always monochromatic, but now there was a wistful quality to them. He could just make out the grey sheets of a bed in a room with black windows and white walls. The bed creaked here and there, and he could see himself in the bed but not the other occupant. But there was something about the way that the hair curled that looked so familiar. He couldn’t control dream version of himself, much to his frustration. The man in the bed looked content though. There was sleep around the edges of his demeanor.

They were mid-conversation. “…so, you’re finally admitting that you’re afraid?”

“Maybe I am a little afraid. But I know that you’ll protect me, so what’s the point of living in fear?” A beat. “You’re leaving already?”

“I’ll be back before you know it.”

“I know. Stay safe.”

“You too.”

⁂

The Batter didn’t know how long he had his neck craned up, looking at the sky swirl and try to both blend and untangled itself with the smoke. His bat was in hand, tapping against the ground and brushing something away here and there.

He could feel Zacharie stirring beside him. The Batter’s bat froze midair. Zacharie stretched and yawned. The Batter took note that even in the man’s sleep, the mask didn’t go awry. Zacharie cracked his knuckles as he stretched out his arms. “Where’d Pablo go?”

“To Zone 2. He is concerned about the conditions of his brother and the Guardian that resides there.”

“Aw, can’t believe he just left without us like that. He must be really anxious about them. I kinda am too. It isn’t like Valerie to be gone for so long without trying to send a message beforehand.” The Batter tried to nod, but he was still looking up, letting his eyes focus anywhere but on his companion. “Something bothering you? I can sense that you’re brooding over something. You can tell me what the matter is, friend, I can listen instead of talk sometimes, you know.”

“I…” The Batter rested his head against the elevator door. “I dreamt of a memory.”

“Do you remember what it was about?”

“Yes.”

“Well, tell me. Don’t leave me in suspense.”

“It was about you and I.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Care to elaborate?” The Batter shook his head. “Oh. Well, um, maybe this shows that we had a connection before in the past? You know, I had a dream about you too once. It wasn’t anything really too revolutionary though, just you playing baseball with your teammates, having a good time. I went to a lot of your games actually. I wanted to try being a vendor and it didn’t work out too bad. People like a cigarette and a snack while they pacify themselves.” Zacharie took his hand. The Batter didn’t squeeze back. “I’m assuming that this dream disturbed you or maybe even upset you in some way. Now, I could give you this long, lofty talk Pablo-style about how to feel better, but I know that you’re more of a person who speaks with actions, not words.” Zacharie patted the man’s shoulder before he stood. “I’ll leave you to your thoughts. Tell me when you’re ready to go to Alma.”

The Batter quickly rose to his feet. “I am ready now.”

“Oh, already? Did you test out the walkie-talkie like Pablo asked?”

“I have equipped it and will properly utilize it in the correct moment of combat.”

“Oh, okay then. Let’s go. Can I push the elevator buttons again?” The Batter nodded. “I hope Dedan can appreciate your generosity.”

The Batter was trying to compartmentalize his thoughts, but the dream kept twirling around the entwining and tangling with everything – it was a plume of smoke amidst the perfect clouds of his mind. It cried for attention, couldn’t not be seen, but it was ignored, shoved away for another day. There were more important matters at hand. Silly dreams, no matter how much nostalgia and melancholia was stuffed into them, were just children of the mind, born of nothing but thin air. The only thing the Batter needed to know was where to go and how to swing a bat.

Before he knew it they were back on the train – perhaps a different one, he didn’t care – that was bustling with workers and quick on the tracks to Alma. The workers stared, the dream screamed like an insolent child demanding attention, but the Batter put ol’ Dedan on the front of his mind.

The Batter had willfully let the man slip out of his hands in Shachihata (why was it so easy for one to lose their insight?), but the man had no escape in Alma. He was dead meat.


	4. Green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _KILL WHOEVER STANDS IN THY WAY, EVEN IF THAT BE LORD GOD, OR BUDDHA HIMSELF_

“But Papa, I—”

Look, scan, stamp, approved. “Stop shriveling, K.C. What are you? What have I said that you always were?” Look, scan, stamp, denied, yells. “What are you? What have I always said that you were?” He repeats.

“…a man.”

Look, scan, stamp, approved. “Are you just a mere man though? Or were you destined for something great?” Look, scan, stamp, denied, cursing. “Hm, are you? Answer me, boy.”

“I am.”

“Am what? What are you?” He had a wide, white grin spread across his face and a copious amount of black ink stained his fingers. The Batter’s dream was still taking on the monochromatic palette.

“I am destined for something great.”

“Never forget that, my boy. Now hand me a handkerchief.”

⁂

“Batter? Wake up. Can’t believe you fell asleep again. You just slept and you were so antsy the last time we rode together.” The Batter only stood from his seat.

“Have we arrived?”

“Just about.” The Batter could hear Zacharie make a noise from underneath his mask. “Do you smell that—that wonderful aroma? That’s the certified miasma that comes with the package deal of Alma, alongside various undocumented cattle-related diseases.”

Zacharie was correct. A putrid odor immediately made its way through the Batter’s nose – worse than the one in Zone 0. The Batter couldn’t believe that it was actually possible. The smell was horribly organic and filled with decay and rot.

“Man, I’ve missed these fountains.” Zacharie gestured all around them as they stepped off the train together. “Welcome to Meat Mania, Bovine Divine, the Beef Reef, Flesh F—”

“I get it,” the Batter interrupted. He swung his bat over his shoulder and looked around. “You seem to favor this place.” The squirmy sound meat being shoved and pushed toward wherever its destination was thundered over everything else. Zacharie raised his voice over the sound, but the Batter remained calm and controlled. Noise and smell weren’t going to distract him from his goal. Nothing would this time. He was determined to find wherever Dedan was and let everything unfold.

“Well, a little.” They made their way down now, surrounded by workers. They might have been talking or muttering amongst themselves. The Batter couldn’t hear over the noise, nor did he care. “I consider myself passionate when it comes to the subject of substance, especially in a place like this. It’s how I get my business.”

“You told me that there is already a business with the Mall in Zone 2.”

“Yeah, I used to set up shop there sometimes, but I’ve really been hanging around Pablo’s lately where the majority of workers are.”

“I see.”

“I mean, selling stuff to Zone 2 is pretty mediocre and systematic work. People in Zone 3 could care less sometimes, it goes up and down. But Zone 1 is pretty consistent.” Zacharie shrugged. “I just like to be where the money’s at, you know?”

“What do you do with this money?”

“Well, you see, money can be exchanged for goods and services. I get lots of goods for giving out all of my services. We’re adults here. We have to take care of ourselves. I’m sure you understand that.”

They stopped in front of a large building. Green seemed to be the theme of this location, even if there weren’t any plants like there was in the other areas of Zone 1. The workers dispersed in different directions around the couple. Only a few went into the large, intimidating building.

“Zacharie Hoya!” They both turned around. This worker didn’t tire as easily as the first deliveryman. He presented a few more plastic-wrapped items than the last did to Zacharie. “You have received a few special packages from the Office as per request from the Plastic Administrations of Shachihata, Zone 1.”

“Aw, for me? Why, thank you.” He scribbled his signature on the paper he was presented (the Batter spied “Hoya” in the messy writing). Zacharie hurried to tear off the plastic encasing. “These are for you,” he said to the Batter. “First we got the bat that your teammate Masashi—Masashi Chunichi—used.” He tossed it the Batter’s way. “Try that for size.”

The Batter caught Masashi’s bat in one hand. He looked down at Harold’s bat in his other hand and compared the two. Masashi’s wasn’t busted up and felt much more comfortable in his hand than Harold’s, it also had worn strands of tape wrapped around its grip. It was made of aluminum too, but it felt heavier. The Batter could certainly do more damage with it. He tossed Harold’s bat aside. It might have landed in the meat stream judging from the loud splash – more a squish than a splash, now that the Batter thought about it – that came from behind him.

“Hey, hey! You better have one-twenty credits, tossing out good merchandise like that! Geez.” The Batter reached into his back pocket and pulled out the correct amount of change. Zacharie only glanced at it, quickly tallying the numbers, before putting it into his own pocket. “And I got you some new clothes. I was rummaging around a while ago and found them. It’s David Américo’s. I think he was usually on the opposing team against you. Sorry, my memory’s blurry.” The Batter looked over the new outfit. It was clean and looked loose and airy enough to fight in. David’s name was stretched in large black and bold letters across the back of the jersey. It looked faded.

“Should I change here?” The Batter asked.

“Change wherever you want, as long as you give me two-twenty. And you know, you could’ve resold that bat to me and gotten some money back, but it looks like it’s too late for that.”

“How much was it worth?”

“Twenty.”

“Not worth it.”

“Whatever.” The Batter handed the correct amount of bills over. “Go change so we can head inside,” Zacharie said as he thumbed over the money. The Batter went to do so.

Thoughts of Dedan ran through his mind as he changed into the new outfit. Would the man be willing to cooperate with him? Was the man going to be irrationally violent and put up a fight? The Batter didn’t initially want to engage in combat, but if things were going to come to that, then he could easily put peace on the backburner and put war on the forefront of his mind.

Zacharie whistled once the Batter rejoined him in the entryway of the building. “Looking good, Batter. Non-bloodied attire really suites you.” The Batter chose to ignore that statement.

They walked through the building together. Music was blaring throughout it, perhaps to drown out the noise from outside. Zacharie continued to speak about various uninteresting matters as he led the Batter in different halls. One minute they were going one way, then the next they were turning around a corner to go elsewhere. There was even a point when they walked right back through the hallway that they had just come out of. The Batter didn’t question it though. Zacharie had been a decent guide so far and the man was certainly much more ordinated and familiar with their environment than the Batter ever will be.

“And then I resold it for double the price, they didn’t even see it com—Pablo, we meet again! What are you doing in a place like this?” The Judge turned and faced the Batter and Zacharie.

“I have… I have seemed to misplaced myself.” The Judge sighed. “No matter. Give Dedan my best wishes when you two come upon him. I only wanted pass through on my way to Japhet’s.” The Judge’s eyes looked over the Batter. “I see that you have cleaned up since our last visit together.” He then looked in between the two. “Handholding? The duration of your acquaintanceship has only dated for a couple of days at most.”

Zacharie shrugged. “Still no word from Val?”

“No, I’m afraid not.” The Judge moved away from the hall he was in and waved. “Well, I’m on my way now. Best of luck to the both of you.”

“You too, Pabs.” Zacharie looked after the Judge until the man’s figure disappeared. He glanced up at the Batter. “I hope Valerie’s all right. This entire thing is really peculiar and I can tell that it’s messing with Pablo.” The Batter didn’t know what to say. He didn’t particularly care for this stranger named Valerie, but he could only imagine how close the bond between Valerie, the Judge, Japhet, and Zacharie was. It seemed like they were the only ones who really kept each other company. They expressed no interest in the other Guardians and the workers were insignificant. Of course they were going to be closer than most. Perhaps Dedan, Enoch, and the Queen were the same way. Maybe there were even groups in the communities of workers also. Who knows?

A group was stronger than one, but solidarity had been a theme for the Batter since the moment he woke up alone.

⁂

Zacharie let go of the Batter’s hand once they reached their destination. “Well, this is where I leave you. Remember to put in a good word for Pablo. I’ll be waiting for you out front.” And with a quick pat on the back, Zacharie was gone. The Batter made his way toward the entrance.

Workers. They weren’t wearing hardhats, but they did wear overalls like the ones on the farm, along with tall rubber boots and thick gloves. They all looked up at him. “Um, who sent you?” One of them asked.

“No one sent me. Is Dedan here?” They all glanced nervously at one another.

The one that had spoken to him stepped up. “Um, De-Dedan…” He cleared his throat. “Um, yes, of course, but first, uh… an introduction?” He turned toward his colleagues. “D-Do I give the introduction?” They all quickly nodded. “Um, okay… So, you’re at the, um, no, you’re in Alma for the first time, yes?”

“Yes,” the Batter answered.

“So, here the meat flows freely and fills the metal pools around us and our, um, work,” he gestured to the few workers behind him, “consists of pouring meat into bottles before the fountains can overflow. Then the, uh, the meat is then delivered to all of the other zones. And it’s very important, because without meat, people would have nothing to eat. And they would die of starvation, one after the other.” The Batter was tired of formalities now.

“Thank you for the introduction. Where is Dedan?”

“M-Master Dedan has an office in t-t-the center of the fountains,” another worker picked up, “but… but nobody has ever found it.”

“Master Dedan seems to only appear when necessary,” another one said. “He comes from this entryway, but, um, we can’t find a room. W-We just stand and, um, wait for him to come out.”

“W-Who are you, anyways?”

“Me?” The Batter tightened his grip on his bat. The workers’ eyes widened and they all took a simultaneous step back. “For the short-term, I wish to speak to Dedan. For the long-term, I have come to liberate the WORLD of malignance.”

“Oh… oh, really?” They were all reaching behind their backs. The Batter stood ready. “Well then, can you liberate us?”

“I don’t want to be liberated!” One screamed, crying. “Please no!”

The Batter was knocked off balance. Huge plumes of smoke filled the hallway, immediately blinding him. Liquid was splattering everywhere. He sighed. He had literally just paid good money to get new clothes. Once he jumped back to his feet and the smoke cleared some, he could see what he had suspected.

The workmen’s heads lay severed below his feet on the ground. Their bodies still stood, spurting black, black liquid from their opened necks – darker than the ink on the man’s fingers in his dream. The liquid looked thicker than blood, richer too. The Batter flicked the substance off his bat. It didn’t stain like blood, thank goodness, and he couldn’t feel it soak through his clothes and stick onto his skin either.

The headless bodies’ arms all swung at him. It was more than easy for the Batter to swing back, block them, and attack. Hard aluminum to the soft abdomen was enough to bring them down. The Batter’s corrupted adversaries all went down, one after the other, like dominos.

He took a moment to look over his work. It was a glorious mess, really. Would Zacharie be proud to see such a thing? Perhaps. Who knew where the masked man’s thoughts really lied. Well, the Batter knew that they lied with money. He picked through the pockets as quickly as he could. The workmen had less credits on them than the intruders did, but it would have to do. The Batter could feel a good sum gathered in his pocket, along with the walkie-talkie at his side. He hadn’t utilized it in battle like the Judge had wanted him to. Oh well, maybe next time. He seemed to be doing fine without the extra aide anyway.

Things graduated from green to purple and the stench of meat was returning. The Batter could see another fountain in the center of all the deep purple, along with a multiple sets of stairs. He could see one leading up to another door and one leading to a metal bed that was hooked to the wall. There was a long desk – smaller than the Judge’s, but tidier – in front of the fountain.

The Batter could hear shuffling from above, coming from the staircase leading to the door. It seemed like it could have been a bathroom. The Batter looked down at his bat and his clothes. They were tinted black some, but he didn’t look as menacing as he possibly could with blood all over him. He placed his bat against the desk in front of him. There wasn’t too much to the office. It didn’t look like a living space compared to the Judge’s room. The only thing that could give it away was the bed, but the bed’s sheets looked starched and tightly tucked in, like someone had never even touched it before.

Whistling. The Batter looked up to the door again. Dedan was coming out. His uniform was off and replaced with a tan trench coat, still unbuttoned. His boots looked somewhat unlaced at the top. The man looked slightly less haughty without the thousands of medallions across his shoulders. His face was screwed up into a smile, one that looked subconscious. And he was whistling too? Something good must have come his way happened recently, the Batter assumed.

Dedan opened his eyes when he came downstairs. Once his eyes locked on the Batter the whistling stopped and the smile wilted. “By the Queen’s thousand faces,” he muttered. “How the hell did you get in here? You’re supposed to be playing baseball or some shit. I thought we came to a consensus to revoke your pass into the WORLD.” He sighed, voice growly, and starting rummaging through his desk drawers. The Batter could see that the papers and files contained inside were all neatly aligned and organized, even color coded. Dedan pulled out a white file before shutting the drawer. “Let’s see… Oh, here we…. fucking go. Feast your eyes upon this shit.” He threw down a piece of paper on the desk so the Batter could see.

> _OFFICIAL VOTING TALLY BALLET RESULTS_  
>  _X = NO, O = YES, ABSTAIN = NO VOTE_
> 
> _Should workers from Zone 1 renovate the building in Zone 0?_  
>  _• PABLO – X_  
>  _• DEDAN – O_  
>  _• JAPHET – O_  
>  _• ENOCH – O_  
>  _• ELOHA – O_
> 
> _BY A VOTE OF 4-1, ZONE 0 WILL BE UPGRADED AS SOON AS RESOURCES ALLOW._
> 
> _Should the production of sugar in Zone 3 extend to the Mall in Zone 2?_  
>  _• PABLO – X_  
>  _• DEDAN – X_  
>  _• JAPHET – X_  
>  _• ENOCH – O_  
>  _• ELOHA – X_
> 
> _BY A VOTE OF 1-4, THE PRODUCTION OF SUGAR WILL NOT EXTEND TO ZONE 2._
> 
> _Should the Batter be allowed the ability to freely roam around the WORLD?_  
>  _• PABLO – O_  
>  _• DEDAN – X_  
>  _• JAPHET – O_  
>  _• ENOCH – X_  
>  _• ELOHA – ABSTAIN_
> 
> _THIS VOTE WILL BE HELD UP FOR FURTHER DISCUSSION._
> 
> _Should there be a break from elemental production?_  
>  _• PABLO – ABSTAIN_  
>  _• DEDAN – X_  
>  _• JAPHET – X_  
>  _• ENOCH – X_  
>  _• ELOHA – X_
> 
> _BY A VOTE OF 0-4 (ONE ABSTAINED), THERE WILL BE NO BREAK FROM ELEMENTAL PRODUCTION._

“What the fuck?” Dedan snatched the paper into his hands again and the Batter watched his eyes furiously look back and forth as he read. “She _abstained_? I thought we came to an agreement on something for once?! What the fu—okay.” Even though Dedan’s voice had calmed, he slowly tore the document in two. He pointed behind the Batter. “Hurry up and put your ass in a seat before I throw you out. It’s suppertime.” The Batter went to get his own seat while Dedan pulled up in his. “Hope you like beef.” Dedan clapped. “Get the fuck in here! I got a guest too, so make it double!” A worker immediately came barging in with two trays stacked with meat. “See, the idiots can’t find the room if they tried, even when I station them outside the door. This one though,” Dedan ruffled the server’s hair (he was missing a tie) before he pushed the small man away, “stays in the room at all hours. Only one that knows shit, right?”

“Y-Yes, Master Dedan.”

“Now get on out before I kick you out.” The server scrambled away back to where he came from. Dedan only ate using his fork. With teeth like that the Batter figured that a knife was no longer needed. The Batter carefully picked at his dish, never letting his eyes leave his target. Dedan had managed to clear his plate in a manner of seconds. He glared down at the Batter’s still full plate as he picked his teeth with his long fingernails. “What? Not hungry?”

“Not particularly.”

“Hmph, the All-Star Team was a fucking ungrateful lot since day one. Always fucking biting the hands that fed them.” He spun the plate down his way and began to eat it. “So, why’d you break into my place of residence? There ain’t nothing to rob here, if that’s what you want. All I got are sheets, meat, and a—” Dedan’s eyebrow twitched and he slammed his hands on the table suddenly. “—and a _dumbass fucking_ servant who doesn’t bring me napkins!” The servant immediately came bustling into the room, arms piled high with napkins. Dedan grabbed a bunch and began to clean his face. He then waved the servant off as he settled back into his seat. “Hurry up and tell me why before I get bored with ya.”

“I will like a pass to Zone 2.”

“You—fuck— _you_ want a p- _pass_?” Dedan roared with laughter. The Batter was sure that if the servant was still there he would self-implode. “You’re funny! Waltzing into my office-slash-bunker like this and demanding shit from me.” He was banging his hands against the desk, bouncing the papers and plate everywhere. “I mean, fuck I look like just giving stuff away, huh?” The Batter didn’t respond. “Okay, okay,” Dedan wiped the tears away from his eyes, “okay, let me calm down. First off, I’m denying you. One, because I fucking hate your guts, and two, because I really, really fucking hate your guts. You got that?” The Batter remained silent. “Oh, quiet type, huh? Whatever.”

“I have a question then.”

“Oh yeah?” Dedan crossed his arms. “Make it quick and make it worth my time.”

“Why does the Queen administer blockers to the WORLD?”

Dedan raised an eyebrow. “Blockers? _Blockers_? Are you fuc—are you kidding me?” He threw his hands up. “You’ve been listening to Pablo and that other kid’s conspiracy theories and shit haven’t ya?” The Batter shrugged. “First things first,” Dedan jabbed his finger against the desk top to emphasize his point, “blockers aren’t real. Get that through your head. The Queen wouldn’t do such a thing. If you think it’s this fucking nonexistent ‘blocker’ bullshit that’s the reason behind all this…” Dedan crossed his arms again and shrugged. His voice lowered, “Then you got another thing coming.”

“What is it then?”

“That’s classified information. I’m a Guardian. You’re a tool.” Dedan pushed his chair back and stood up. “Now go fuck off and play ball like you’re supposed to. It’s all you’re good for.” The Batter stood up also. He glanced back at his bat resting against the wall, ready when he was. Damn right he was going to play ball.

With a few quick steps, Dedan made it to the weapon before the Batter could. “Listen here, dumbass,” Dedan held the bat up in the air, as if he was inspecting it. “I got a tight schedule around here, you see, and you just walking into the place I sleep like you own it, not eating my food, and wasting my time with worthless requests was really pissing me off. Then, I would’ve probably knocked you around a bit before kicking you out and thought nothing of it. But now you’re trying to use,” he slammed the bat against the wall, immediately busting it some, “ _brute fucking force_ against me? What the fuck are you doing?”

“I am doing what’s right.”

“What’s right?” Dedan laughed again, but there was nothing humorous about it. “I’m about to shove this stupid bat right through your teeth if you don’t see yourself out. You know what, you’re banned from Zone 1, you hear me?! You know what that means? Your ass stays parked in 0 with that idiot Pabs and all of the stupid little Elsen that are trying to benefit off of his stupid version of ‘welfare’ and ‘public assistance.’” He held the bat up in his hands. “I don’t need this stupid piece of shit sorry excuse of a ‘weapon.’” He threw the bat aside. It rolled by the Batter’s feet. “Let’s do this the right way.”

The Batter secured the brim of his hat over his eyes. “I initially had no desire to fight you, but I am now fully aware of your tyrannical reign and the suffering of your laborers.” He picked up his bat. “Prepare to be purified.”

Dedan snorted. “You’re gonna ‘purify’ me? That will be the day.” He cracked his knuckles. Each joint gave a loud, sickening pop, but the Batter was not perturbed. “You’re quenching your thirst with poisoned wine here, dumbass. This is a losing battle.”

“On your end, it will be.” Dedan snarled. He lunged out to the Batter, but the smaller man managed to dodge out of the way just in time. He could feel the Guardian’s fury radiating off of his colossal form. The Batter’s hand twitched toward the walkie-talkie on his waist. His pride didn’t want to, but it was necessary. He quickly snatched up the device while Dedan grumbled and tried to come at him again. The Batter pressed the button on the side, “I’m in need of your assistance,” he calmly said into it. Dedan’s attacks stopped for only a moment, his eyes widened, and then he glared.

“What the fu— _you_ found it? I lost that ages ago. Fuck.” The Batter managed to knock Dedan’s hand out of the way with a swing of the bat, but the Guardian seemed almost unfazed. “What, you think your silly little toy is gonna hurt more than two hundred pounds of pure muscle?” He laughed. “Think again.”

A loud buzz came up over them. It didn’t faze Dedan, who was solely focused on laying a hit on the Batter. He almost did when the Batter looked up for a second, curious about the sudden sound. It was getting extremely loud and incredibly close.

With a loud boom a hole came through the roof. In the Batter’s brief moment of distraction, Dedan managed to knock him over. The Batter held tight to his bat. Dedan managed to sock him against the side of the face. The Batter could feel his eye automatically tear up and could taste copper in his mouth, but that couldn’t stop him.

Another bang and another hole. “You… stupid… fucking...” Dedan punctuated each point with a punch, but the Batter managed to narrowly dodge each attack. Explosion, hole. Chains were coming down from the ceiling now. “Yeah, I forgot some important shit—not because of some fucking ‘blockers’—but I do remember how you always ruin everything I got going on for me.” More chains were coming down and beginning to latch and tie around Dedan’s hands. He used his feet instead, and landed a kick near the Batter’s ribs before the shorter man sprung to his feet and swung at Dedan’s middle.

The Guardian only momentarily hunched over before he was at it again. He pulled at the chains, but they wouldn’t budge. “Fucking shit,” he muttered to himself. He wrapped his hands around the chains and used them for leverage to hoist himself up slightly and come back down at the Batter. The Batter managed to just barely miss the heel of the Guardian’s boot. “First, you take her, then you try take Hugo away from me, and now you’re trying to take my life? Fuck that. You’re going down today.” Dedan’s lips curled up into an ugly grin, proudly showing off his row of jagged, gnarled teeth. “I should’ve done this a long time ago.”

He pulled down on one the chains and managed to snag it down from wherever it had been attached to. The Batter pressed the button on his walkie-talkie again, just enough for it to beep and alert whatever was assisting him.

Dedan swung the chain the Batter’s way. It caught against the side of his jersey. He could feel it sting against his skin. He looked at Dedan’s hands to see that the man’s dark skin was rubbing raw and turning red, but it wasn’t stopping him. He quickly brought the chain back to his grasp, wrapped it around his arm, and threw it out again. The Batter hit it out of the way with his bat. He heard the chain sizzle against the aluminum. What exactly was it made out of?

“Just fucking die already!” More chains erupted from the ceiling. They wrapped around Dedan’s hands, his middle, his legs, nearly immobilizing the man. Dedan shouted out in frustration, as if the chains weren’t tightly wrapping around his body by the second and biting through his exposed skin. “I HATE YOU. LOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE DONE.” He tried to break out of the chains, but they weren’t budging. “ZONE 1 AIN’T NOTHING WITHOUT ME. I BUILT THIS GODDAMN PLACE ON THE BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TEARS OF MILLIONS. EVERYTHING’S GONNA COME TUMBLING DOWN LIKE FUCKING JERICHO IF YOU DON’T STOP THIS SHIT RIGHT NOW.”

The Batter didn’t stop. He stepped up closer to the struggling man. He used his bat to bring down one of the chains and bound it around the man’s neck. “Dedan, Guardian of the first Zone, prepare to be eradicated.” The Batter jumped up on the desk and tightened the restraints around the Guardian’s neck. He could feel his palms burn, but he knew that Dedan was experiencing the same pain a thousand times over.

“F-FUCK…” Dedan was pulling away, but the Batter only strengthened his grip. He could feel his hands rub raw and his knuckles turned white. “T-They’re gonna… they’re all gonna…” His words were lost in the translation of strangulation. The Batter had a foot against Dedan’s back, pushing him into the chains. He shifted his hands to rub into the laceration that he had surely created against the Guardian’s neck. Dedan was dropping to his knees, but he stilled seemed to have more to say. “This has to be fucking joke.” He was coughing. The Batter could see flecks on blood begin to stain the ground. “Y-Y-You’re not supposed… to fucking win…”

“And yet David won against Goliath.”

The Batter jumped down from the desk and kicked his feet against Dedan’s back. He gave the chains wrapped around his hands one final fatal tug before he released them. Dedan clobbered to the ground. The chains quickly retracted then, tearing at the fallen Guardian’s clothes and skin. The Batter could make out dozens of burns and deep cuts and heavily bleeding marks all of his body. Blood pooled on the ground and gathered underneath the Batter’s feet. He moved to behind the desk before it could stick.

Dedan’s body was still twitching and a gurgling, babbling sound emitted from him. Nothing for the Batter to worry about. He tried to rummage through the Guardian’s organized files, but the aftermath of adrenaline was still running through his system and his eye was beginning to smart. He began to pull out file after file in an absentminded manner and held them underneath his arm. Zacharie could make sense of everything latter. For now, the Batter was tired.

He didn’t bother to step over the pool of redness that had managed to spread through the office as he tried to make his way out. He felt fingers brush against the side of his shoe as he walked past Dedan. He gave the dying man the mercy of pausing and looking down instead of leaving immediately.

“D-Don’t… h-hurt her… again…”

The Batter brought his hat down again and left silently.

⁂

Zacharie swarmed over the Batter once he returned to his side. The masked man put the Batter’s arm over his shoulder and immediately took the stack of files from him. “Time to get you out of here, huh?” The Batter’s vision swirled and went in and out. He could only focus on getting one foot in front of the other and Zacharie’s voice. “The most bizarre thing happened while you were gone. I was selling cigarettes to a group of workers on break, about to get a good deal off of them too, when suddenly their heads just literally explode.” Speaking of which, the Batter could hear something squish underneath his feet. He could just make out liquid darkness against the green walkway. “And then instead of blood, this weird black stuff came out of them. I managed to move out of the way before it got on me, but…”

The Batter heard a crash and screams. “Shoot, there goes the train,” Zacharie muttered. “This way then. I know a sort of shortcut back to Pablo’s.” The Batter was then taken off to a different direction. His head wouldn’t stop ringing. He didn’t understand. He slumped over to the side. “Whoa, steady, big fella. I can’t bear all of the weight here.” The Batter forced himself back to his feet. The battle with Dedan had really managed to exhaust him, but he felt like he hadn’t done much of the fighting. It was really Alpha who had stolen the show. Maybe he had exhausted his energy holding the chain against Dedan’s neck. His arms felt pathetically weakened.

The entire walk became a confused blur. Zacharie chattered about this and that the entire time. The Batter allowed for his companion’s voice to fill his ears, but didn’t take the effort to exactly comprehend the words. Thoughts of rest filled his mind, not even the horrid odor that was unmistakably Zone 0 could disrupt that. Damn a lumpy pillow and strange dreams.

The Batter soon got his wish… almost. Zacharie forced him to sit up on the mattress. “Sorry, pal, but I need to take a look at this. Looks like those Luck Tickets came in handy, huh?” The Batter spied a small kit painted “gold” (it looked more like a faded yellow hue akin to the building’s paintjob) in Zacharie’s hands. The kit was opened and he saw some medical paraphilia inside. He closed his good eye again and allowed Zacharie to get to work. “I will extract the correct amount of credits from your pocket for this, just so you know.” The Batter involuntarily winced as his eye was touched. Zacharie rubbed a hand over his shoulder and shushed him. “Don’t worry, I got you. I thought you said that you didn’t want to fight him?” Zacharie chuckled. “What happened to that plan?”

“It changed.”

“At least the great and grand _El Bateador_ managed to hit it in the park with this one.” The Batter could feel a soothing coolness be pressed against the sore palms of his hands. “I was worried you weren’t going to come back out.”

“There was nothing to worry about.”

“I guess so.” After bandages were wrapped around the Batter’s hands, something was pressed into them. “Eat then sleep. I’ll look over what you brought while you do that.” The Batter nodded, but he set the food aside. He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes.

⁂

“The Xiao’s are coming, boy.”

“Are you going to accept them?”

“If their paperwork checks out, then I have to.”

“But what about the bribe th—”

“If their paperwork checks out, then I have to, boy. We are men of integrity. You think some pesky credits are going to sway me otherwise? Your papa is better than this. You are better than this too.”

“Right.”

“Their son, uh, Dedan Xiao, there’s talk that he’s about to be the next general for Kyüvek, that he’s surpassing his father and his brother.” A click of the tongue. “Tough guy. I wouldn’t want to mess with somebody like him.”

“Me neither.”

“Don’t say that. Your father is a lot of things, but I am not strong. I raised you not to be weak like I am though. Even if someone as intimidating as General Dedan Xiao was your adversary, you do not go down without a fight.”

“But he’s over six feet tall and has special military training.”

“And yet David won against Goliath.”

⁂

> _DEDAN,_
> 
> _My apologies for not responding to your letter sooner. I have been caught in various affairs lately that have captivated my entire time. I am sure that your concerns from before are now insignificant from the challenges that we are facing now, but I know that you also have a tendency to hold grudges and let emotion bubble inside of you and let it to take over your entire wellbeing and cloud your judgment. (Perhaps you should try the tea recipe that Enoch and I had crafted before all of this madness began? A taste of healthier times could really do the body good.)_
> 
> _I know you’re upset about the entire affair with Hugo, but alas, nothing can be changed. What’s done is done, I’m afraid. You still have all of the pleasure to visit the boy whenever you like if time is so gracious. In fact, his birthday is coming soon and you are invited to join in on the small, brief celebration that I am having in the safe house a few miles away from my old home. Please, I invite you to take a break from the war and to allow yourself to be wrapped up in happiness and warmth like you used to. It’ll do you some good._
> 
> _I am also afraid that we will have to communicate via Enoch for the time being, too. Don’t worry. My cousin is one to be trusted. I beckon for you to reconsider taking him for an ally. You were concerned that he doesn’t have any military training or seemingly any good affiliations, but I promise you that he has something up his sleeve. I won’t say what. That’s for you two to discuss._
> 
> _In conclusion, I am doing fine. I’m well. My head is still on my shoulders. Pray for me not to become the next Antoinette if things do not go our way soon. But above everyone and anything else, I pray for your health and safety. In fact, I was brought to tears the other day when I had discovered the letter that you had sent me left unopened, unattended, and unloved on my escritoire. And I am handwriting this to you. No scribes or ghostwriters. You deserve better, Dedan, above all._
> 
> _I do hope this reaches you in time._
> 
> _WITH ALL OF MY LOVE,_  
>  _YOUR INAMORATA_  
>  _(Remember that night we spent together in my gardens before the bombs went off? The feeling is mutual.)_

⁂

> _I can’t believe I’m wasting my precious time to write you this bullshit, but here it is: fuck you._
> 
> _I despise you from the bottom of my heart. This the last time you hurt her, me, and anybody else. How does it feel to know that your son doesn’t even look at you the same anymore after what you’ve done? Ha, and people like to think that I’m the bad guy here. I don’t give a fuck. They can demonize me all they want. I know what’s really going on. And that’s all that matters. So fuck you and your stupid little “party” too. If you call that an army then you need to seriously step back and reevaluate before you meet some serious consequences._
> 
> _I’m ready to fight poison with poison._
> 
> _笑德丹_

⁂

> _ON THE AFFAIR OF YOUR ADDITIONAL REQUESTS_
> 
> _GENERAL DEDAN XIAO,_
> 
> _I am sorry to inform you that your requests for RAAMAH XIÀO and JOKSHAN FRANÇOIS have been denied. Under no circumstances are they allowed to enter WORLD II._
> 
> _Your Friend,_  
>  ________

⁂

“Sugar, I think I’m starting to piece it together now.”

“Aw, Zachy, stop reading boring papers and come talk to me. You haven’t visited me in forever!”

“What are you talking about? I came down here just last week.”

“A week feels like all eternity when you’re locked in a bunker all the time.”

“I’ll be sure to see you after I come back from Zone 2, okay?”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

⁂

The Batter counted off the correct amount of credits needed for a new outfit and a new bat and handed them to Zacharie. He gnawed off a dry piece of beef between his teeth as he looked over the new clothes. He had woken up midday. The windows were opened, but the room was still suffocating. The Batter assumed that while he was sleeping Zacharie swapped out his sweater for a shirt. There were a few cuts and scars and scabs on the man’s arms, but the Batter thought nothing of it. The marks on his neck were much worse anyway.

For once the Batter allowed for his movements to remain somewhat sluggish as he unbuttoned his dirty jersey and pants and only pulled on the pair of fresh pants. He got caught up in his thoughts as he went to lace his new pair of boots (they proved to be more comfortable than the shoes he had previously – they looked suspiciously similar to Dedan’s).

Zacharie fanned himself with the bills the Batter had handed to him. He broke the summery silence between them. “Zone 1 is going to be out of business after this. For me and everybody else.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, it is so. I guess I can try my luck in Zone 2, but I think I already told you that it’s not the most preferable place for me to sell.”

“When are we leaving?”

“Um, you already paid for the forged pass, so technically whenever we want. Maybe a little later when the heat goes down. We have to go by foot instead of train. Good thing that Zone 2 isn’t as large as 1. It’s basically just the Mall, the Library, and the Park that makes up the place. I think I already told you about how there’s no elemental work, but there are librarians, a few workers at the park, and people mainly work in the Mall. Uh, I don’t think I’m allowed to sell merchandise there anymore now that I think about it, but Japhet’s not going to be on my back for that, only the others were.” Zacharie sighed. “At first I wanted to wait for Pablo to get back so we can all go to Zone 2 together, but I guess we’re going to meet him there.”

“Did he find his brother and the Guardian?”

“I haven’t really had any word with him now that I think about it. I hope he’s doing okay.”

“I’m sure he is.”

“Yes. Maybe we’re just making much ado about nothing.” Zacharie leaned against the Batter’s shoulder. Though it was hot, he didn’t object. “Are you still hungry?”

“No.”

“I stocked up on food because I’m pretty sure there’s going to be a halt in production with Dedan and all of the workers gone and all.” The Batter nodded. “How’s your eye?”

“Fine.”

“And hands?”

“Healing.”

“Think you can still fight need be?”

“Always.”

“Good.”


	5. Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME SHALL PROSPER_

Immediately, the architecture was noticed, right off the bat. The buildings weren’t exactly skyscrapers, per se, yet they were in their own individual constructions stacked neatly on top of each other, as if they were designed by a child who was stacking their toy blocks up high and neatly. (The Batter itched at his mind to try and recall where he had picked the word “skyscraper” from, but to no avail.)

The color was eye catching also – purple. Not as dark as the wine and plum hues of Dedan’s ( _former_ ) office, but not yet the soft shades of periwinkle or lavender – colors that resided in the still-fuzzy parts of the Batter’s mind. But it was pure violet, a strong, royal shade, yet it didn’t project too much pride somehow. The Batter thought of Japhet to be somewhat of a gentle, quiet creature as he was the friend of the Judge and Valerie, and if Valerie was anything like the Judge, then the Batter expected for the man to be wordy, yet yielding.

“Ah,” Zacharie said as they first stepped foot into the dizzying maze of the cubby-hole structure of it all. “I see the orchids are dying.” The masked man gestured a slow hand toward the ground. The Batter looked down to see orchids of the lively-white-turned-decaying-brown variety lining up the walkway. The place wasn’t particularly as grassy as Zone 1, from what he could tell, but the plants looked like they had brought some green to the place, nonetheless. “I haven’t really spoken to Japhet as much lately,” Zacharie whispered.

“Is that so?” The Batter only spoke to beckon his companion on. It would be a waste of time to have to navigate everywhere by himself and Zacharie seemed to have no qualms against behind his guide thus far.

“Yeah.” Zacharie began to walk toward one of the larger buildings. “Actually, now that I think about it, lately only Valerie had been visiting him on a regular basis. The Judge had been under the weather for a while, so Val was glad to run errands for him. So whenever the Judge needed a book or a piece of advice or anything else from Japhet, Valerie would do it for him. Even though the Judge is better now, Valerie still wanted to do tasks for him. I myself was too busy preparing for your arrival and with my own ventures to really be out visiting any further than Zone 1, and if I was in Zone 2, then I would be too preoccupied with the Mall for any true visitations with Japhet.” The Batter heard Zacharie sigh. “It seems a bit selfish admitting it aloud, I know. So, in the end, only Valerie truly knows what’s wrong with Japhet, it seems like.”

“Is Japhet in this building?” Zacharie had stopped once again when they reached the doors.

“This is the Library. He doesn’t really have a _home_ exactly. He just sleeps, breathes, and lives here amongst the people and the books. He wasn’t really the type to hide away in too-big offices.” Dedan came to mind. The Guardian had taken advantage of the citizens’ lack of intelligence in order to store himself away in plain sight. The Batter wondered if the rest of the Guardians were the same, tucking themselves away from the people that they were supposed to govern. Japhet certainly sounded like an outcast; a man who slept among his people and was always readily available instead of concealing and only coming out to wreak havoc.

The Batter let his thoughts slip out: “How respectable,” he murmured. Zacharie turned to him.

“Yeah, I guess so.” He took the Batter’s hand. “He’s either upstairs or downstairs, I’m guessing. Ready?”

“Ready.”

The Library provided soft carpets and cool air. The Batter figured correctly that it was a good idea to button his jersey before leaving the Judge’s area. There was a large, metal desk in the center of the entrance room with two staircases on either side. The walls gave way for a deep shade of purple, nearly blue but not quite.

The worker – or librarian, Zacharie had mentioned that there were librarians – immediately jumped to his feet once the couple entered the establishment. “Welcome to the library,” the small man greeted, voice but a whisper. “Um, do you, or um, you _two_ want books? Because, uh, you can’t. The upstairs are inaccessible right now.” The librarian began to look down at the empty desk and twiddled his thumbs. “There’s, uh, there’s intruders upstairs.”

“Intruders?” The Batter asked. Now he was interested. It looked like these intruders had spread out farther than just Zone 1. Were they in Zone 3 and beyond too? Had they invested the Judge’s sanctuary too?

The librarian raised an eyebrow, but continued to look down. “Uh… y-yes? Why do you ask?”

“Because I wish to eliminate them for you.” The librarian’s eyes shot up.

“E-Elimin—b-b-but you could get hurt. You c-cou—there’s nothing upstairs. N-Nothing. There’s, um, walls and shelves and stairs, and, um, some strange man… but nothing to worry about!”

“Strange man?” Zacharie asked.

“Y-Yes. A, um, strange man. Um…” The librarian glanced around the room. A few other men in white shirts and black ties were occupying in the room. One was staring at a wall, while the other was staring at the Batter’s bat. “Um, you can g-go upstairs if you want to help, please. Don’t be too loud, please. And, um, the fourth floor is not really accessible.” The man looked down at his thumbs again. “People were… People were tearing the p-pages out of books.” He shivered. “So it’s, um, probably really, really dangerous up there.”

The Batter expected for Zacharie to interrogate more about this “strange man,” but Zacharie was already pulling him up the stairs that featured another floor with more soft carpets and deep purple, along with more bookshelves. “I remember Val telling me how Japhet made the decision to replace the books with fake ones because everyone couldn’t get over how someone was ripping the pages out of books.” Zacharie, ignoring everything, walked to the door at the end of the hall. “Some of them are still real though—not important. Only the more ‘edgy’ ones risk paper cuts and ripped pages now and days. I wonder what the Queen’s putting in the air here, making everyone so anxious and neurotic all of a sudden.” The Batter thought back to Dedan and how the fallen Guardian had said there was no such thing as “blockers.” If that was so, what was the true root behind everyone’s strange behaviors and memory loss? The Batter was sure that he would get to the bottom of it eventually, but it was a quest that had to be placed on the backburner. Now was the time to locate the intruders that the librarian had mentioned and Japhet. Perhaps Japhet could actually provide some useful information when they found him.

Zacharie waved his hand in front of the door and it opened. The man was certainly knowledgeable about their environment, from telling the correct code instantly to the workman back in the first zone to navigating the labyrinth of hallways that led to Dedan’s room like it was nothing to now simply commanding for entryways to appear. The Batter wasn’t sure what he was going to do without the masked man. His journey would certainly take longer, that was one thing for sure. It was like Zacharie was a key – no, a _master_ key, more valuable than any Luck Ticket or other strange device that could be found. It looked like Zacharie had proven to be the true good luck charm of the two of them in the end, not the Batter.

They reached another winding set of stairs, dotted with windows along the walls. They were only going to go higher and higher. “He…” Zacharie paused. He continued to lead the Batter up the stairs though without stopping. “He,” he continued once they reached the top of the stairwell, “likes to pray up on the roof sometimes. He says that it’s easier that way. It’s the only time he really pulls himself away from everyone. He says it helps him think or something or another.” Zacharie shrugged. The gesture looked forced instead of the man’s usual casual style. “If he isn’t up here, then he might be downstairs where his shrine thing is. If not there, then he could really be anywhere. Well… maybe not the Park, actually. That would be a little strange… But anyway, it wouldn’t be too hard to spot him. It might look like a lot, but most of these buildings lead to nowhere actually and it should be easy to spot him with everyone.”

“That’s good to know.”

“Do your words drip with sarcasm or gratitude? That is the question.” The Batter had no answer to the question.

They walk upstairs – hands clasped together, but not holding too tightly to one another – until they reached the top. The Batter’s mind continued to sing praises to Zacharie. He figured that he would of have to solve some type of code to uncover the pathway leading to these stairs, but with Zacharie, his master key, at his side, he could simply part the waters and go through. The Batter didn’t voice these thoughts aloud. He kept to himself. Perhaps there would be time to sing praises later (or perhaps not).

Boxes suddenly joined the floors they stopped on. “Wait,” Zacharie pulled the Batter by the hand, “get that.” He was pointing to a box by the bottom of the next staircase. The Batter reached down and grabbed the object. “Is that another walkie-talkie?” The Batter nodded. He flipped it over and saw that _OMEGA_ was written on tape across the side. The handwriting differed from the one that marked Alpha’s. Omega featured handwriting that was smaller, neater and even the tape wasn’t peeling. Alpha’s name had been written in large scrawl and the tape was yellowed and nearly peeled all the way off.

The Batter attached the device next to Alpha’s. He wondered if Omega was going to differ from Alpha and if he could utilize the both of them at the same time in the moment of combat.

Zacharie worked his magic again to lead them to the roof. The dreary skies still managed to touch the Zone 2. “Nice view from up here,” Zacharie said. “It makes me almost forget that life is but artificial.” Once again, the Batter chose not to comment. “I’ll wait here.” Zacharie stood off to the side, next to the ladder that led to the very top of the roof. “Collect me if there aren’t any intruders on the roof. If Valerie and-or Japhet are up there, just yell and I’ll be right up in the blink of an eye.” Zacharie squeezed the other’s hand before letting go. “Godspeed.” The Batter nodded before going up.

It was a far climb up to the rooftop and it would be a far fall back down if the Batter took a misstep. One slip, and it would be a both a pitiful and bloody ending. Blood would be welcome come the Batter’s end, but not pity – anything but.

The air became drier the higher the Batter ascended (“ascended” – another trigger word).

The Batter steadied himself as he reached the top. He had to be prepared for whoever was up there. If it was intruders, then they couldn’t catch him while slightly winded. The Batter found a figure on the top of the roof, surrounded by candles. Dozens of candles, from white to pink to blue, were lit and scattered across the rooftop. They were all the same size and not one was unlit. They forged a pathway toward the figure, a large man in a black cloak. He didn’t reek of pride like Dedan had with his dozen of shiny medallions and tall boots. The man moved to his feet as the Batter took a step toward him. With a flick of the cloak, the man managed to put out all of the candles that surrounded him, but he still held his back toward the Batter.

“Welcome to Bismark, wayward soul.” His voice was not as deep and commanding as Dedan’s, but definitely more mellifluous and all around easier on the ears, yet it still held power and dared not to be questioned. “Yet, are you simply a mere wayward soul? The last book I falsified was _The Masque of the Red Death_. Would it be poetic justice if you in fact are the Red Death, here to confront me on the fact that though I constantly belittle the Elsen for their fear of living, I have yet to conquer on the own things that cause me trepidation and to toss and turn at night?”

“Are you Japhet, Guardian of Zone 2?”

“Hm?” His head cocked to the side. “That would be a true statement, yes. If one judged from recent developments, then that statement would appear false.” Japhet held his head down. “Are you truly the Red Death? Have you come to collect me?” He racked his hands over his head. “I know I do not deserve to ascend to Paradise after I have sent so many to Hell. Please. Or…” He turned his head toward the Batter now. “Have you come to collect _him_ … or have you come to retrieve I?”

“Who are you talking about?” Was Valerie there? Impossible. There was nowhere to hide on the roof. The Batter glanced behind him. No. It was just him and Japhet and the candles and the greying skies.

“He… He wanted to leave…” The man’s eyes were filled with an emotion that the Batter couldn’t recognize. “I treated him differently and I treated his brother differently than the rest. I did everything for the rest. They were like my own countless, helpless, pitiful children.” The emotion remained in his eyes while he spoke just above a mutter. “I punish disobedient children,” he hissed. “But he… he wasn’t disobedient, yet I still punished him. He just asked for the sweet release of freedom and… and I denied it from him.”

“Stop with these foolish mumblings.” The Batter took a step closer. He could see Japhet’s shoulders flinch. “Now explain what happened— _properly_.”

“I will obey your conditions for now. I have never felt this emotion before. It was strange. It was… _unholy_. And when he asked me to help him leave this damn abomination that I have taken a part in entrapping us all in, I felt that emotion once more, albeit much more intensely than ever before. And it pained me. It _physically_ pained me. I have never felt pain before—not like this. I… I wanted it to stop. So I took these hands,” he held up his hands in front of his face – the Batter saw that they were streaked in red, “and I used them to slowly kill him, then I was planning to kill myself, but before I could commit this second sin I found my feet guiding me to the roof—my safe haven, my oasis in this desert of blasphemous tongues that I have buried myself too deeply in—and I laid out what I believed to be his corpse across my knee. I wept. I begged for forgiveness. I cried out loud enough that I was sure that all of Bismark could hear their disgraceful Guardian wallow in his own sorrows.

“Then suddenly I looked down to see that he was still breathing. The… The look in his eye was enough for this strange emotion to twist inside of me. I have never seen such hatred before, not directed at my own being. I found myself reaching out toward him, trying to console him though there was no solace in my touch, and he bit me across the back of my hand—my left one, the one that I used to touch him gently in the past and then to slay him in the present.” The Batter took another step closer. Now he was close enough to see the bite mark on the Guardian’s left hand. “Yet, even as he took his dying breath, he did not curse nor scold me. He forgave me. He understood. I took the moment to compartmentalize my scattered mind and to try and calm my palpitating heart. I took my left hand—my sacrilegious appendage—and I dipped it into his redness, between his ribs, until I found what we both had desired for the entire bout of our stay here.” Japhet took in a shuddery breath. “As I was alone here, in my newly corrupted place of worship, as I fed, as I contemplated, as I oversaw my fallen empire, I have been waiting for the Red Death to amass the souls that are in this place and then come to whisper in my ear that it is time for me to descend to Hell—to the deepest, darkest uttermost bowels of the Inferno in which I surely have made a bed for myself now.”

“Have you just admitted to me that you killed Valerie, Zacharie’s friend and the brother of the Judge?”

“Yes. Without much, you have managed to drag the confession forth my lips. Now that you have this knowledge, what will you decide to do with it? Are you going to punish me? I have been a disobedient child, have I not?”

“Zacharie and the Judge will hear of this.”

“Yes, yes. I have tried to hide it, but I heard whisperings of the Judge leaving his home and lurking about. I also heard murmurings of a mysterious man wielding a weapon alongside Zacharie who has been freely roaming about also. Yet I was too confided within my grieving to care much about it.” Japhet slowly rose to his feet. The Batter’s hands flinched to the walkie-talkies at his hip. Hopefully Omega had something up its (metaphorical) sleeve. “My acolyte warned me of your arrival, yet my anger refused to acknowledge his words and I forced for him to jump off of the rooftop.” Japhet turned around. The Batter saw that the man wasn’t wearing a cloak, but a long robe. The dark gown was lined with a golden pattern of what appeared to be a phoenix that stretched across the sleeves. “Now, I am no longer afraid of death. Now, my arrogance knows no bounds and I will continue to make no peace today. And you shall consider yourself unlucky to have found me in such a state.”

“No.” The Batter pressed the button on the side of Alpha’s device before he pressed the alert for Omega. “I would consider myself lucky. I am not this ‘Red Death’ you speak of, but if you desire to battle me, then I will have no choice but you destroy you.”

“I have been waiting, but I was unsure of what exactly I was waiting for.” Japhet outstretched his arms, the sleeves of his robes billowed down his arms, revealing that blood had dried and trailed down his arms. The liquid wasn’t black. Valerie bled normally, not like a workman – or, should the Batter say, an _Elsen_. More blood was around the man’s lips and had dripped down his neck, disappearing down the robe. “Is this what I was waiting for? Am I, the good and generous, about to tally another sin to my marks?” The man pulled his lips back, yet the gesture was neither a grin nor a smirk. The Batter could see that blood was between the lines of the Guardian’s teeth. So, when Japhet had said “fed” it was not in the metaphorical sense like the Batter had initially interpreted.

The now familiar chains began to rain from the skies. The Batter chanced a glance up as he poised his bat. He couldn’t see anything through the thick fog. It was like the chains were descending from the heavens – or Paradise, as Japhet had referred to it. Maybe there was some type of large device hovering above them, above everyone, manned by someone or something that was always readily available. Japhet let out an earthshattering cry as the chains wrapped around his wrists, cutting through the fabric of his magnificent robe and skin. It wasn’t a sound of fury, like Dedan had produced, but a sound of pure agony.

“Corruption runs through your veins thicker than the blood that decorates your lips,” the Batter muttered. He took a swing toward the man, connecting against the side of his chest. Another chain wrapped around Japhet’s neck and lifted him from the ground. The Batter struck the man across the face. A bruise was quick to form on the Guardian’s cheek. Japhet yelled again.

“More wrath—more wrath to match my envy,” Japhet spat out. The Batter felt blood fleck across his face as Japhet spoke.

“You said that you were not going to go down without a fight.” The Batter hit him straight the stomach. He could tell that he knocked the breath out of Japhet, but the Guardian didn’t falter.

“That was not my intention. I meant my body wouldn’t go down without a fight, but I will not defend myself. This is my punishment and I accept it with open arms.” He held his head up toward the sky. More chains rained down and cut through Japhet’s robe and wrapped around his body, and the man accepted it. His body was rising higher. The Batter beat him again, not holding back, frustration in his swings. Why wasn’t he fighting back? _Unacceptable_. He struck the man across the face again and again, until Japhet’s facial structure became as tumultuous as the buildings around them.

Everything swirled into a blur suddenly, and in the blink of an eye, Japhet was on fire.

The Batter’s stubborn feet refused to back away from the flames. The candles surrounding them were still unlit from when Japhet had extinguished them earlier. “Omega,” the Batter whispered. It must have been.

He watched as Japhet was engulfed in flames, as if Inferno itself had been brought to the rooftop. A grin spread across the Guardian’s face. “I am not a god! I cannot be perfect!” Japhet’s eyes rolled to the back of his head. “Valerie, I beg for your forgiveness again! Cleanse me!”

“It’s too late for a cleansing.” The Batter wished that he was the ventriloquist behind the chains, so he could claim the sweet satisfaction of burning through the skin of Japhet’s neck. “You have already baptized yourself in the blood of the innocent.” Japhet didn’t respond.

The Batter also remained silent as he watched the man willingly burn himself. Heavy smoke joined the already smoky atmosphere. Then suddenly, the chains released and Japhet’s blackened body dropped in a heap on the ground, just barely missing the candles. The Batter looked over him. He could see what Japhet’s body had been blocking. Even when he was strung up, his long robes had been hiding whatever Japhet had been staring down at. It was a body – delicate bones, just like the Judge.

The body’s chest cavity was but a cavity now. And there was no heart resting alongside the lungs. The Batter scanned his eyes over for the missing organ. He couldn’t find it. _Ah_ , his mind whispered. So _that_ was what Japhet had fed upon. A small part of the Batter wished that he had been there witness such an atrocious act. It wasn’t hard to believe that cannibalism was a new concept in the environment that they were in. Dried tears were streaked down the dead man’s cheeks and his eyelashes were still glittery wet. A look of something terrified was frozen on his face – despair, grief, misery. Now this scared body was beside its content killer.

“Batter!” The Batter walked back to the edge and looked down. Zacharie was far down, but the man’s words were still clear. There was no other sound to hinder it. The fire was gone. Japhet’s yells had ceased. The Batter’s mind was no longer booming. “I see smoke and I can’t help but feel just the slightest bit concerned! Do you want me to come up?” The Batter hesitated. He pulled out the Alpha’s walkie-talkie. “Batter?”

“One moment.” He pressed the button. “Do you have chains of the unsaturated variety? I wish to move this body to the bottom of the building.” Two beeps sounded in the Batter’s ear – affirmative. Two sets of chains came down from above. The Batter cautiously touched one. It wasn’t harmful. He took both of the chains and wrapped them around Valerie’s shoulders. The chains then pulled the body up and over the building, down the side opposite that Zacharie was standing.

The Batter took one look down at Japhet’s body. “Disappointment,” he muttered to himself. He didn’t feel the usual bloodlust-fueled rush. Maybe he could satisfy himself with the intruders that he was promised.

The Batter climbed down. He was descending. The word “ascend” returned to his mind. Where was it from… _”I have ascended. I am trying to be better than God.”_ Oh.

“Batter?” Zacharie immediately grabbed at his companion’s sleeves. The Batter just now noticed that they had become charred somewhat. “Are you okay? Was there a fire up there?”

“Yes.”

“Well, are you okay? Was it the intruders?” Zacharie was worrying again. The Batter had to ease the man’s nerves somehow.

“No. There were no intruders on the roof. It was just Japhet.”

“Japhet? Is he still up there?” Zacharie wasn’t moving toward the stairs though. He still held on to the Batter’s arm. If they were such great friends, then the Batter would have thought that the man would be scrambling to get up the ladder and check on Japhet’s condition immediately.

“Yes. His body remains.”

“Oh.” Zacharie looked down. “Well… Well, let’s go downstairs before the bodies start exploding then.” What a strange reaction. The Batter decided to say so.

“Do you not care?” Zacharie had already pulled him halfway down the stairs.

“I…” Zacharie remained silent until they reached the entrance of the Library. The librarian’s dark matter was dripping down the desk. “I guess it had to be this way.” His voice was quiet. The Batter didn’t like it.

“How do you reach the back of this building?”

“I’ll take you there.”

A scream cut through the air. The Batter let go of Zacharie and hurried to the source of the noise. It was already located toward the back of the building. The Batter set his bat down as he soaked in the scene in front of him. The Judge was there – Zacharie and even Japhet had mentioned him searching around the zone – and hunched over Valerie’s body, like Japhet had been. “My brother,” the Judge cried out, “my brother, my brother… I had built a cellar where we were supposed to forget our sorrows. V-Valerie? Wake up. It’s time. I-It’s time to go, please wake up.” The Judge wasn’t peppering his sentences with lengthy words.

Zacharie walked to the Judge’s side. He touched the grieving man’s shoulder. The Judge didn’t even acknowledge his friend’s presence. He was holding Valerie’s head against his cheek, not caring if his brother’s blood stained his crisp, clean clothes. “Valerie, Valerie, Valerie,” the Judge kept muttering over and over. Watching two men lament over the same body within the span of barely an hour – the Batter wasn’t sure what to make of it, but he did find himself preferring the Judge’s mantra over Japhet’s lofty, half-explanation.

Soon, the Judge was wrapped up in Zacharie’s arms, while Zacharie only faced forward. The Judge’s body was trembling, while Zacharie stood stock still. “Hey, Batter,” Zacharie called out. The Batter nodded. He didn’t want to walk any closer. “Go on without us. I bet those intruders should be, uh, gone by now. Zone 3 is a cakewalk.”

“Are you sure?” _I don’t want to leave you._

“Yes. Go. When I get Pablo situated, I’ll find you. Or, you’ll find me.” Zacharie rested his head on top of the Judge’s. “Go,” he repeated. The Batter nodded before he walked away.

⁂

“So, you’re telling me that Japhet killed Valerie, _ate baby Val’s heart_ , and then Batty set Japhet on fire, and Japhet _wanted_ it?”

“Yes. That about sums it up.”

“Why are you just sitting here?!”

“Huh?”

“You’re just gonna let this happen? Zachy, no! You have t—”

“Sugar, stop. Please.”

“But he killed your uncle! Why are you doing anything about it?”

“Sug—”

“What if he gets me next? You’re not gonna do anything about it either? Huh?”

“You’re safe in the cellar.”

“Yeah, sure, I am. If you really love me, you’ll get me my—”

“Pablo locked them up for a reason.”

“There aren’t any people down here! I’m not scaring nobody! Please, Zachy, please, please, please?”

“…Fine.”

“Ah, thank you so much!” Sugar wrapped her arms around Zacharie’s neck. “You’re the bestest friend ever!” She pressed a loud kiss against the side of his mask. “Aw, sorry, I got lipstick on your mask.”

“You can clean it off for me later if you want something to do. I’m about to make a new mask anyway.”

“Oh, really? What’s it gonna be, another animal?”

“We’ll see.”


	6. Indigo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _SHEEP, THOUGHT I_

Without Zacharie the omniscient guide, the journey to Zone 3 was… not as smooth as it could have been, the Batter admitted. He took a moment to stretch his aching ligaments once he reached the edge of the Zone. He soaked it all in like he had done with the others. The first thing he took note of the air. There was the usual smoke and haziness swirling in the sky, but the air was actually _palatable_. The Batter recalled Zacharie saying that Zone 3 hailed the manufacture of sugar, but the Batter wasn’t expecting for it to smell like each oxygen molecule in the air had been personally glacéed with the sweet substance. It was too much. He found his nose beginning to wrinkle as he headed toward the orangey building ahead of him.

The interior was surprisingly green. The Batter took a map that had been stuck to the wall and saw that there was some Zone 2 mazelike-ness, but in a different manner. Things didn’t feel so cluttered and cubic, but very linear.

There was a workman with his tie loosened and leaned back on the walkway. “The plastic is beautiful today,” the shorter man said. His voice was easygoing – not at all containing the neurotic nuances of his colleagues from the previous zones. The Batter only tipped his hat to the lazed Elsen before moving on to the building that the walkway connected to.

More mazes, more puzzles, more passcodes. The processes of which all would have been made easier with Zacharie by his side, the Batter thought.

⁂

Speaking of the devil… “What are you doing here?” The Batter asked, setting his bat by his side.

“Good day, friend! It is I, the Judge, here to bestow upon you endless bits of whimsical advice and small hints of disgust that I believe that no one notices, but it is particularly obvious!” All the Batter could do was shift the brim of his hat so that the shadow over his eyes could be secured.

“Zacharie,” he said, walking over to the counter, “you have acquired a new mask.”

“Zounds!” Zacharie chuckled. “I’ve been discovered! So, you have seen through the disguise, dear Batter.”

“You are only wearing a crudely made false face that exaggerates,” _the already exaggerated_ , “teeth of the Judge and doing a poor impersonation of his unique way of speaking.”

“Ah. I will take your critiques to heart.” Zacharie tapped the front of his mask, right along the enlarged incisors. “Too large?” The Batter shook his head. “Wonderful! How are you finding this new area?”

“What happened to the Judge?”

“Ignoring my question, I see.” Zacharie tapped his fingers along the counter. “Pablo is still… _recovering_ over what happened. I decided that I will momentarily take his place in the meantime. Anyways, to speak once again in the style of Pablo, I will _beseech_  you to _reconnoiter_ your newly acquired _locality_.” The Batter stopped his lips from drawing into a frown (or, more correctly: an already deeper frown).

“You are not accompanying me?”

“Hm?” Zacharie stood up straight. “No, well—not unconditionally. I will be by your side later on, I promise. I have some things to take care of.”

“Right.” The Batter turned back to the door.

“Carry on.”

⁂

The Batter found himself stuck as he read a memo pasted on the wall. There seemed to be memos posted everywhere, so he didn’t understand why he was suddenly stopping at this one. 

> _DO NOT FORGET TO MAKE YOUR BED WHEN YOU GET UP!_

It was like time was stopping still. And the Batter’s thoughts began to drift away.

He spun around on his heels and turned eastward. He felt out of his own body as his feet began to move on their own accord.

But… at least he was going in what he assumed to be the correct direction – so it was acceptable for now.

“New friends?” The sound of the workman’s voice made the Batter reluctantly break himself from his stupor. (“Stupor” seems to be a more appropriate word than “out-of-body experience” – the Batter didn’t wish to be too theatrical.) “Welcome to the dormitories!” Once again with the laidback tone.

“Jesus. Ol’ Enoch’s workhorses are fuckin’ stupid.”

“Ah, ah! Look at ‘im!”

“Snuff ‘im out. We got shit to do.”

There was a round of laughter, then an extravaganza. The familiar dark blood of the unfortunate workman managed to reach the toe of the Batter’s shoes. He retightened the grip on his bat and moved toward the next room. Dark liquid had managed to spread on the pillows, the intruders, the walls, and the dying workman’s body.

To the intruders the Batter announced, “Prepare to be vanquished,” and it was so.

Then:

> _IF YOU DO NOT ATTACK THE INTRUDERS, THE INTRUDERS WILL NOT ATTACK YOU._

The memo looked recently made also. There were more unworried Elsen about, no more intruders. It was funny how everything seemed to swirl together (even more) unexcitedly without a companion. Even the discovering of a third communication device with _EPSILON_ written boldly on a faded piece of tape did not hold much weight.

The Batter continued on.

⁂

Zacharie cocked his head to the side but still handed the Batter items without a hitch. “So… nothing out of the ordinary?” The Batter shook his head as he changed into his fresh pair of newly purchased clothes. “Are you sure?” The Batter nodded. Zacharie began to drum his fingers along the side of his arm. Perhaps he wanted a verbal explanation? Then the Batter would oblige.

“I went through the area by myself,” the Batter recounted as he buttoned up his jersey. His skin was still sticky with red and dark blood alike though and the clothes instantly became slightly discolored. Oh well. He straightened his back up and took his new bat. “I defeated tainted workmen and intruders alike,” the Batter continued. He took a quick practice swing with his new bat. The bat was apparently Yoshihiro’s, another teammate and another name that faintly brought something to mind, but nothing too impactful.

“Ah, I see, but the issue I am having is… Hm, how do I phrase this?” Zacharie tapped along the front of his mask now. He wasn’t wearing the Judge’s mask though, but his original one, so there were no teeth to trace along. “Was there anything… anything _out of the ordinary_ about any of your recent intruders, _querido Bateador_?” Was there supposed to be?

“No.”

“Alright then.” Zacharie chuckled. “Onwards. Enoch awaits.” The Batter nodded.

⁂

Was it surprising? Perhaps. It would be shocking to the normal eye, yes, but the Batter was above normality. The sickly concoction of the black liquid that was not quite blood, old and new workmen’s bodies burning, and the putridity of it all festering into the “sugar” substance was… was…

“Where is the one responsible for this?” The Batter asked.

“He….” The Elsen took a deep breath in. Could his lungs be as contaminated as the workmen that worked in the mines? “He’s in Area 4.” No easygoing tone whatsoever. Perhaps since this particular Elsen knew the truth behind “sugar,” he didn’t partake in indulging in it.

“Okay.” And the Batter was on his way once again – one foot after the other. Left, right, left right until they moved on their own accord once again and the Batter no longer had to think about simple things like breathing or walking and could only fill his head with important things, like his next destination.

⁂

Was the Batter even sentient anymore? No, what was the correct word to use: “anymore” or “ever”? Did it matter? All the Batter knew that it was very quiet in his head as he looked down upon the dark stains of his hands that he had received from the seemingly harmless Elsen.

Did it matter anymore? Everyone was corrupted. No exceptions. Perhaps even the Batter wasn’t safe.

That was an interesting thought.

“So, what’s blocking the path?” The Batter figured that Zacharie could answer his own question based upon the darkness on the Batter’s previously semi-fresh clothes and bat. And the rest of the ride was silent, as if the Batter’s mind had unknowingly coated the mood, until Zacharie said, “Take care of yourself,” before he departed from the ride.

⁂

The music box held a familiar tune. But wasn’t everything familiar? The Batter almost didn’t want to give the device up to Zacharie, but it wasn’t as if he had anywhere to carry it. Now, the Batter had complete faith in his ability to fight one-handed, but it was better to have full use of his powers. And with Alpha, Omega, and Epsilon by his side, the Batter truly felt like an unstoppable force three times over.

“What do you see?” Zacharie’s voice cut through the mental fog so easily. “What is the tune making you see?”

“A… cradle.”

“What color?”

“…Red.”

Zacharie nodded. “This item is very dear to my heart. It would bring me boundless jollity if I could have it in my possession.” The only perk of giving away the music box was the small bit of warmth that sparked between them as the Batter handed it over. “Thank you.” Zacharie held the device to his chest instead of winding it.

⁂

Zone 3 particularly enjoyed having memos on the walls. 

> _YOU MUST NOT BE HERE._

The Batter was never particularly good at listening anyways.

More and more memos started coming the further the Batter traveled down the passageway.

The final memo was somewhat eye-catching though.

> _YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED HERE, K.C._

⁂

Large, round – he looked like an overstuffed, overgrown Elsen. “I…” Enoch cracked his knuckles. He was already red in the face. “You still have not learned how to listen, I see.” The elephantine man huffed through his nose. The Batter kept a steady hand near his newly acquired walkie-talkie. Anything was possible and he refused to be caught off guard. “Batter,” Enoch crossed his arms over his desk and gave a tightlipped smile, “return to where you came from. Your existence is easier on everyone—including yourself—when you are kept peacefully in your containment area and doing what you do best: insensibly and innocuously playing ball.” Enoch chortled to himself. It was more of a rumble. The room even seemed to shake almost, but the Batter was not at all perturbed in the slightest.

“I do not wish to return to… wherever I came from.” The Batter felt his hands clench the handle of his bat, but he calmed his reflexes. “I wish to have some answers.”

“Do you now?” Enoch leaned back in his seat. “What if I don’t feel like answering? What if I only feel like pummeling your unwarranted existence back into meaningless nothingness?” Enoch let out another snort. “Hm… Did the Queen release you?” The Batter shook his head. “Naturally. Even if she did, you probably would not know. She has been…” Enoch straightened up in his seat again and folded his hands over his desk. “Yes, she has always had an outré flair to her ways, the dear girl, but lately she has been a bit more _distasteful_ than usual—or, making more distasteful decisions than usual, should I say.”

“Such as?”

“As if I would divulge such private information to the likes of you!” Enoch slapped his hand on his desk as he laughed and laughed and laughed. “First the intruders, and now _you_! You know, you are even worse than any of the intruders here. Your cronies are quite easy for the likes of us, the Guardians, to flick away, but you have proven to be a true pest.” He especially hissed the word “pest” between his teeth.

“Cronies?”

“Yes? Ah.” Enoch’s smile widened and he tapped the side of his bald cranium. “The medial temporal lobe is thought to be involved in declarative and episodic memory. Deep inside the medial temporal lobe is the limbic system, which includes the hippocampus, the amygdala, the cingulate gyrus, the thalamus—ah, but you did not come here in search for a lesson in science, hm? I mean,” his grin grew even wider, “you have already seen everything there is to know of my contributions here. Us as Guardians operate as gods in our own different little ways. My duty as God has been the creation of life and happines—”

“How dare you label your sins as ‘happiness.’”

“Sins? You are certainly one to talk. Even now with as many alterations as the Queen and I personally administered to you, you are still,” Enoch slowly gestured a fat hand toward him, “like _this_ —undeniably flawed, undeniably ungodly.”

“You are nothing like God.” The Batter lifted his bat high up in the air and pressed the alert button on the side of Epsilon’s device. “Prepare to be eradicated!”

“Eradicate me? I am an exceptional beast!” Enoch slowly arose from his desk. “Prepare to finally become squished like the pest you are!”

⁂

Enoch was huffing and puffing and out of breath. Epsilon’s assaults were more brutal than Alpha and Omega’s, but at a price. Even the Batter found his vision temporarily blacked out and his ears were still left ringing from the attack. The monorail was still vibrating from the impact. The Batter’s eyes and ears could heal though. Enoch’s wounds would not.

The Batter took a good swing against the Guardian’s head for good measure. He didn’t even need his full sense of sight and hearing to play offense. Enoch rumbled loudly as the Batter was inches away from beating his brains out. “Ah, ah…” Enoch still managed to huff out. “You… You are still… the cold water eel.”

“I believe that _you_ are the ‘cold water eel’ now.” The Batter’s head was beginning to feel less dizzying from Epsilon’s dramatic assault. Epsilon would either have to be utilized sparingly or the Batter would have to use it more to get used to the side effects. “It was only a matter of time before my clairvoyant hands would slay you, corrupted spirit.”

“Am… I corrupted? Ah, ah… You are the one with the crystal gazing phalanges. Witchery…” Enoch laughed as if his eyes weren’t starting to pool with blood. “Hhh…” His labored breathing sounded just like a workman inhaling smoke or shuffling “sugar.” “We… I…” The Batter dug his thumb above Enoch’s eye for encouraging purposes only. How tiresome. “My… Hhh, my creations will cease to exist alongside me.” The Batter shifted his bruised bat by his side. “Perhaps…” The Batter had enough. “We… both cared for our babes… whether they deserved us as their creator… their father…” The Batter had enough. He jammed his thumbs into Enoch’s already liquefying eye socket. _“Quietus!”_ The big man managed to spit out. _“L-Lebensmüde!”_

“After I remove your all-evil eye, I will severe that garrulous appendage from your head next.” But Enoch was already gone.

⁂

Zacharie was tossing his Judge mask into the air and back down. It looked like the sky had managed to do the unbelievable (or perhaps the not _too_ unbelievable) and become even more gray somehow. As the Batter approached his masked companion, the man stepped aside, showing that he was standing in front of a darkened Elsen. “When did you notice?” He asked.

“Notice what?” The Batter dug into his pockets for more credits. He needed a bat, preferably undented, and perhaps a uniform without plasma, both ectoplasm and Enoch’s. (Perhaps Enoch would insist that he bled ichor instead of human blood, but the Batter saw nothing but redness.)

“Your oblivion is selective. I wish I could have such blissful ignorance, but such a feat is unattainable for the likes of me, huh?” Zacharie shook his head as he gave his infamous chuckle. “Open your eyes and see, _amado_.” Zacharie still took the faded bills from the Batter as he handed them over. “Open,” Zacharie repeated, and, reluctantly, the Batter listened.

It was like they were in a wasteland of blackened workmen’s bodies as far as the eye could see. They were standing in a still-sticky puddle of the life stuff at that very moment. They were standing by a recently corrupted soul, too. The corpse’s fingers were just by the Batter’s ankle. Ah, but not only were there Elsen, but intruders also. The suddenly whitened floors were littered with civilians and criminals, black and red, alike.

 _“¿Ves un problema?”_ Zacharie had already pulled out a new bat and a fresh pair of clothes from his bag.

“No.” The Batter was already going through the motions of changing.

“I see.” The Batter wasn’t sure if he imagined Zacharie letting out a sigh or not. “Did you retrieve any documents from ol’ Enoch before you… purified him?”

“He had no such thing.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, only memos warning for someone to keep away.”

“’Someone?’”

“Yes. This acronym that I have been hearing again and again.” The Batter fastened the last button on his new jersey. “But it is of no importance. I have signed myself a permit to enter the Queen’s private sanctuary.” The Batter felt his feet become pulled away in the correct direction.

Zacharie stood alone for a moment, letting the sickly sounds of the _drip, drip, dripping_ of the minefield of bodies around him and the sound of the chump change that the Batter handed him fill the atmosphere. Once he could hear the Batter walking overhead of him, he let out the breath that he had been holding. He turned his head up toward the ceiling as if he was shooting some type of silent prayer. _“Pronto,”_ he whispered, _“habrá oxígeno…”_ But he cut his own words short and walked away, sidestepping as much liquid as he could, because he knew that there was no one to answer such a foolish thing like a “prayer” anymore.

Oh well. Sugar was waiting, and Zacharie had great, great news.


	7. Purple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES?_

The Batter took the dampened strip of cloth that Zacharie handed him and began to clear the dried blood from inside of his ears and the corners of his eyes. “I managed to find a few documents in his desk drawer,” the masked man murmured. “You didn’t even try to look, did you?” Was the tone different? Perhaps. The Batter never recalled paying attention to such trivial matters in his existence before. “How unaware of one’s surroundings can a person be?” A flimsy, off-white paper was put into the Batter’s lap. “This particular piece was interesting.”

> _Interviewer: **Zacaría** **s Muhammad bin Nuh y de la Hoya of Marokko and Ispaniya.**_
> 
> _Interviewee: **Tsar** **Kazimir “K.C.” Chumakov of the United Federation.**_
> 
> _Interview Setting: **Chumakov’s private office in Madame Vader Eloha of Frantsiya’s living quarters located in the New Capital of Frantsiya under the supervision of two guards. The interview commenced at 23:52 on Saturday, the seventeenth of March, and concluded at 00:20 on Sunday, the eighteenth of March.** _
> 
> _Interviewer’s Affliction with Interviewee: **Old friend and supporter**._
> 
>  
> 
> _(Start of Interview)_
> 
> _HOYA: It seems like it was only yesterday when everyone was cheering, “Chumakov for Tsar! He’s our shooting star!”_
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: Yes. It does.** _
> 
> _HOYA: Anyways, you’ve grown more distant in these past months, my friend. How are you holding up?_
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: I… I have not been “holding up” at all.** _
> 
> _HOYA: Ah, ah. I see._
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: “Ah, ah.” Do people still chant that?** _
> 
> _HOYA: Not as much, no. What do you think they chant now?_
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: Blessings to the queen.**  _
> 
> _HOYA: Of course, of course. Might I ask where your liveliness has gone? Many imagined that you would’ve just broken out of this prison cel—ah, apologies, out of this “office” by now._
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: I’m not sure where it has gone. Honestly, I am not sure about much anymore.** _
> 
> _HOYA: What do you mean?_
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: My memory—it’s been fading.** _
> 
> _HOYA: How so, friend?_
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: It’s simply been fading. Things are difficult to recall and the memories that I do manage to recall do not feel real. Everything has been like a dream the past few days. I feel as if I have to pinch myself every few seconds to ground myself.** _
> 
> _HOYA: Life is but a dream._
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: I don’t like dreams. They’re stupid. Reality keeps the blood flowing.** _
> 
> _HOYA: Yes, if you say so._
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: Any other questions?** _
> 
> _HOYA: Let me admit that I was not prepared to be shaken out of my bed and carried here in the world’s most secured space at such an ungodly hour in the night, so my apologies, dear friend, if I do have an immediate stack of questions on hand. So, at that, we’re going to have to start with the elephant in the room: your wife [Eloha], bless her._
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: Don’t.** _
> 
> _HOYA: But I must. It’s what the people want. How is your relationship with her lately?_
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: I saw her yesterday. She spit in my eye and I tore her dress.** _
> 
> _HOYA: Ah, so it’s going well, I suppose?_
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: I despise that woman with every fiber of my being.** _
> 
> _HOYA: Why?_
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: Because… not only does she want to destroy me, but she enjoys it. I truly believe that she derives some sort of sadistic pleasure over locking me up like this, keeping me from the public eye, and not letting me see my son [Hugo Chumakov].** _
> 
> _HOYA: Speaking of your son, how is he? In the recent photos I’ve seen of him, he looks unwell._
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: He’s sick? See, she doesn’t take care of him. That indecent woman is not suitable to be a queen or a mother.**  _
> 
> _HOYA: I sense some anger here._
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: I am not in the mood for your jokes, Zacharie.** _
> 
> _HOYA: My apologies. I have knowledge that General Xiao, Big Enoch, and my uncle [Yafeth bin Nuh] have taken quite a liking to the child._
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: It’s out of my hands.** _
> 
> _HOYA: That is a… vague response._
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: They are good men and good adversaries. I have never met such suitable foes before.** _
> 
> _HOYA: Well, that’s lovely. How is the battle going? Do you believe that you will win over custody over your son?_
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: Of course. A biological father versus an adoptive mother? Surely, I have this in the bag.** _
> 
> _HOYA: Who knows, the Judge [Pablo Cœur de Lion] is known for making radical decisions sometimes. Perhaps that is why your wife selected his court._
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: You’re good friends with the Judge, yes?** _
> 
> _HOYA: I am good friends with most people._
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: Ah, ah. Shut up.** _
> 
> _HOYA: Did I strike a nerve there?_
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: No.**  _
> 
> _HOYA: On that note, one final question: what are your plans if you gain the favor of the Judge and finally leave this room?_
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: I plan to return to the public and continue my mission until the end, as always.** _
> 
> _HOYA: Good answer. Thank you for your time, my dear friend._
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: You’re welcome.** _
> 
> _HOYA: Perhaps our paths will cross again._
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: I hope so.** _
> 
> _HOYA: May your amnesia heal soon, also. Take care, compañero._
> 
> _**CHUMAKOV: Take care, comrade.** _
> 
> _(End of Interview)_

“So,” the Batter folded his bloody cloth and set it aside Zacharie’s mattress, “it _is_ Hoya.” Zacharie sighed.

“That is all you have taken away from this document?”

“I assume that the truth is written on this paper and your words have held lies to me before.” The Batter looked up at his companion when a moment of silence between the two of them dragged on for too long. Zacharie chuckled once their eyes (most likely) met and dropped another piece of paper down. 

> #  _HE SPEAKS!_
> 
> _Article written by Zacarías Muhammad bin Nuh y de la Hoya of Marokko and Ispaniya_
> 
> _Great, great news from home! Yesterday, on the past Sunday afternoon in the New Capital of Frantsiya of clear skies, a blissful sun, mechanical toy birds whizzing on the hot stone streets, and pink and blue straps of gasmasks and pill bottles being passed from elder to child, the citizens and citizenesses who happened to be close by the Blessed Solace of the de la Croix Princess Pillar, or simply known as the Princess Pillar—built to commemorate the birth of Madame Vader Eloha of Frantsiya, formally known as Princess Solène de la Croix, by her parents, the late _King Vader Abel de la Croix and Madame Eloha Marlène de la Croix—got a glimpse of a true moment in history. Tsar Kazimir “K.C.” Chumakov of the United Federation, also known as Sire Kazimir “K.C.” Chumakov of Frantsiya, was outside of the heavily secured private office (it is unknown if he was officially released from his pseudo-imprisonment or not, most likely not, knowing K.C.) and was spotted midmorning on top of the Princess Pillar. Citizens and citizenesses recount that Chumakov at first was only sitting cross-legged on top of the pillar with yesterday’s copy of The Global Bulletin in hand that he had seemed to grab from a nearby newspaper vending machine on the steps of Madame Vader Eloha’s newly constructed townhall building._
> 
> _Witnesses then say that nearing the afternoon, Chumakov broke his silence when he tossed down the newspaper and requested for someone to give him something to eat. An older citizeness tossed him up an apple, but he threw it down, requesting something more “wholesome.” A young citizen then tossed him a cut of fried meat wrapped in a brown paper bag from a local shop. It is then when Chumakov unwrapped the food and began to speak properly in between bites, leaning against his knee and eyes facing up to the blue, smoke-streaked skies and not quite at the crowd gathering below him._
> 
> _“Is this not food from the butcher shop called Moloch, Belial, and Abaddon’s Golden and Silver Flesh?” He called out. Murmurs of confusion surged through the crowd before the young citizen who had thrown Chumakov the meat responded that it was indeed meat from the aforementioned shop. “Do any of you know the meaning behind those names? Moloch is the Canaanite god associated with child sacrifice, Belial is a term that is personified as the devil, and Abaddon is a place of destruction.” Collective gasps resounded through the crowd. “And this meat, hm…” Chumakov took a slow, thoughtful bite. “Tastes of sugar. Ol’ Enoch’s sugar. His has always had a particular sweetness and addictive quality. Hey, do you know what ‘Enoch’ means?_
> 
> _“Tell us!” The crowd said altogether._
> 
> _“Enoch means ‘dedicated.’ Enoch was the son of Jared, father of Mathuselah, great-grandfather of Noah, and the subject of the deuterocanonical Book of Enoch. Also, Enoch is the son of Cain and the grandson of Adam and another Enoch is the son of Reuben, and another is the son of Midian.” Chumakov took another bite. “Moloch, Belial, and Abaddon’s Golden and Silver Flesh has a partnership with Sugar Inc.” Sugar Inc. is the popularized name of Enoch Schwartz von Himmel-Edelmann’s Sugar Factory, located in Zuckerfabrik of Lrstenina. “Is it not ironic that Ol’ Enoch’s father is named Methuselah?”_
> 
> _“Yes!” The crowd said._
> 
> _“Conspiracies—it all comes together, yes?”_
> 
> _“Yes!” The crowd said again, louder._
> 
> _“Do you know what ‘Dedan’ means?” Generalissimo Dedan Xiào-Molotov is the current Grand Marshal of the Army and Navy of Kyüvek. His late brother, General Yìhétuán “Boxer” Xiào-François, was formally partners with Chumakov and the declared second farther of Hugo Chumakov._
> 
> _“Tell us, Chumakov!”_
> 
> _“’Low ground,’ possibly, but the exact meaning escapes me. I have a quote, would you like to hear it?”_
> 
> _“Yes!”_
> 
> _“Tell the big general that I said this too: ‘Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish and all her villages will say to you, Have you come to plunder? Have you gathered your hordes to loot, to carry off silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods to seize much plunder?’ Ezekiel—chapter thirty-eight, verse thirteen. My mother did not have me memorize the Holy Bible for naught.” Chumakov crumpled up his paper bag of sugar fried meats. “Someone dispose of this for me and fetch me something to drink,” he said as he tossed it back down. Some stumbled to catch the paper and others tossed up the only available drink in Frantsiya: water bottled in plastic._
> 
> _“Quench your thirst, K.C.! The Queen must have fed you poison!” A middle-aged citizeness shouted._
> 
> _“What of the Mullah?” Another asked, referring to Mullah Yafeth bin Nuh of Marokko and Ispaniya.__
> 
> _“What of him?” Chumakov laughed as he took a sip of his water. “He is changing his name to ‘Japhet’ once he embarks to the New WORLD. But—ah, ah—I have spoken too much. I have a message for him also. Tell him this when the next time you visit his holy place: ‘Why do you still pray? I have not only destroyed your homelands, but Dedan, the one you keep close to you, has also. But do not worry. Today I sit on the Princess Pillar next to the jailhouse the Queen has kept me in, but by tomorrow I will be on top of ol’ Enoch’s Sugar Factory’s main building, and the next day I will be on the rooftop of ol’ Dedan’s administrative facilities, and the day after that I will be on topmost window of the Judge’s Palais de la Paix, and then lastly I will be on the highest steeple of your precious New Church and I truly show that I have ascended. I am trying to be better than God. You will accept this, Japhet.’”_
> 
> _Roars from the crowd._
> 
> _“And my name, ‘Kazimir,’ means the destroyer of peace. Speaking of myself, how is my Party of Purity?” Chumakov threw the plastic bottle back down into the crowd._
> 
> _“The POP lives on!” The citizens shouted._
> 
> _“And you will follow me wherever I go?”_
> 
> _“We will march on and on down into the bowels of Hell for you K.C.!” The POP members yelled._
> 
> _“Then, tell everyone you know that K.C. the Batter of the United Federation and the Destroyer of Peace has returned!” Chumakov then jumped into the crowd, and they all caught him and paraded him down the streets, chanting his name._

There was a photograph at the bottom of the article of a man sitting on top of a tall, white pillar wearing a cap that shielded his eyes and an unbuttoned baseball jersey with what looked to be a military coat over top of it. His cleated shoes rested against the sides of the pillar, and the people below in the crowd were just out of reach of the spikes.

The subject of the picture was unmistakable.

“So, this is confirmation of my true identity.” The Batter was this “K.C.” that everyone spoke of. _…So what?_ “We were companions in a past life too.” The dream that the Batter had on the rooftop of the library came to his mind, of the intimate memory between Zacharie and he.

_“What an unexpected twist. So, you’re finally admitting that you’re afraid?” That infamous chuckle resounded in his ears in response of his question. Why?_

_“Maybe I am a little afraid.” A smile. Why? “But I know that you’ll protect me, so what’s the point of living in fear?” No fear. Why? “You’re leaving already?” Where to? Why?_

_“I’ll be back before you know it?” He never did come back to him – not in the same mindset. Why?_

_“I know.” Why? “Stay safe.” Why?_

_“You too.” Why? “Hm…”_

_“Sounds like you want to say thank you.” A kiss was pressed against the corners of his lips. Why? “So, you’re welcome.” Why? Why did it matter?_

“That seems to be the case.” Zacharie chuckled – that same chuckle managed to pull the Batter from his thoughts. “Do you know why they say ‘K.C.’ instead of ‘Kazimir Chumakov?’ Because the Queen declared it profane and banned it from all written and verbal existence. Also, I read that the people of another nation thought your name was ‘Casey the Batter’ because of a poem from their land and they went along with it.”

“I see.” The Batter set the article aside. “Is that it?”

“Yes. Would you like something else to eat and drink?” The Batter nodded. “I see that you are gathering your strength, _mi amigo_. I am sure that the Queen will serve you well… No comment? I see, I see. I will leave you to your lonesome once again then. Care not to make my room untidier than it already is.”

⁂

It was something faintly putrid, distinctly perfume-like, yet the sweet scents that drew from Zone 3 was also present. Stacks of whiteness surrounded here and there. Not purely sugar, there was definitely something sinister mixed in. So, this was the cellar that the Judge had built for him and his brother to “forget their sorrows” in. It looked like someone else was already occupying the space.

“What, back so soon?! You visited me yesterday! Can’t get enough of me, Zachy-poo?” Sugar’s smile wilted some once she turned around. “Oh? You’re not Zachy. Oh, oh! You must be _the other guy_ he told me about. The _bad_  guy, yeah, yeah.” The Batter slung his bat over his shoulder and held his head up high. He had been right to watch where Zacharie had scampered off to and look around once the masked man had left. His companion was hiding yet _another_ thing from him. And it was another person.

The Batter sighed as he took a step toward her. The sound of the heels of his boots (no more cleats or shoes, but boots with laces – how Dedan-esque) clattered across the floor, crushing the scattered white pellets underneath the toe. The girl’s hair was knotted and covered her eyes and her makeup was smeared and sloppy. She wore a man’s military coat and pants – her pants being held up by some rope around the waist and ankles – but no shoes or shirt. “How shameless,” he said as he brought his eyes away from her chest. She wore no undergarments either, but only tape that barely bound her chest. She giggled, a high-pitched, extremely girlish sound.

“But that’s just the way you like it, remember?” She licked her lips, smearing her lipstick further, and widened her grin again. She was hunched over and her skin was too pale to be healthy. Behind her was a mattress covered in stains and surrounded by untouched plates of rotten food. The sickliness of the sweetness in the piles of (most likely drugged) sugar managed to dampen the overall odor of decay and sickness. Her shaky, shallow breaths were just a hair louder than the sound emitting from her hands – bolas. So, she had weapons too. The (caramelized?) dummy balls attached to the end of the strings of the hooks clinked together. The Batter could tell that they were heavy weights. She was stronger than her lanky appearance let on.

“I do not remember such a thing.”

“No? Aww, Batty, you’re still so mean!” Despite her whining, she giggled again. “I’ve been down here, waiting— _waiting, waiting, waiting_ —but I kept reminding myself that if I think of something really beautiful really hard then it would come true. But I wasn’t expecting you… You’re not really beautiful, are you?”

The Batter had enough of her foolishness. “Who are you?”

“Yeah, you’re not beautiful. You’re huge! You’re a big manly man! You could gobble me up and swallow me whole if you wanted to!” More laughter.

“What are you doing down here?”

“Does it matter?” Along with her tone, her smile dropped. “Let us not waste any more time with useless reintroductions. You brought your bat and I brought my dummies.” She bent her legs and dug her toes into the ground, already in a fighting stance. “Dance with me like you used to, Batty Baby. I would really, really like that.” One of the weights at the end of the bolas flew across the room and nearly struck the Batter across the face if he had not ducked out of the way in the nick of time. “Aww, I missed? Lucky there’s more where that came from!” The other dummy weights followed soon after.

The Batter allowed the approaching string to wrap around his arm and he not only snapped it in half, but used it to pull the girl down to the ground. She got back up to her feet straightaway, yet she wasn’t unfazed. She was sickly and obviously winded from taking such a hard hit, but she wasn’t letting down so easily. “You were always so rough with me,” she whined. In the blink of an eye, more dummy weights came at the Batter, but he swung at them with his bat as if they were only baseballs being tossed at him on the field.

They went on and on until Sugar broke out of her stance and swept her leg underneath the Batter’s feet. He found himself on his back and taking a weight in the stomach. It hit hard. She was strong, strong, strong – an acceptable adversary. Hopefully the Queen would be as exciting. It was the first woman in the WORLD that he had found and she was finally someone who was putting up a real fight.

The Batter used the steel soles of his boots to stomp on the girl’s bare toes. She yelped and in the small space of her being distracted, he kicked her in the knee so that she could buckle over. They were both on their hands and knees, squabbling. He pushed where she pulled, punched when she kicked. It was somehow down to brute strength, her bolas snapped and strung on the other side the room and his bat discarded and rolled away to the other. They were dancing just like she wanted.

Blues and purples and reds decorated her delicate skin as if a child was coloring with crayons on a sheet of paper. Still, she smiled, showing off the blood between the crevices of her teeth and the torn creases of the skin on her lips. She outstretched her hand. Her fingers and wrist were surely broken and her nails were bent backwards and one had been totally torn off. “B-Batty Baby, I-I-I’m c-cold… Y-Y-You always leave me c-c-cold.” Did she want something? She was still reaching out to him, palm upward. She craved the surely drugged sugar, right? Oh well. He wasn’t going to give it to her. “I-I… You w-win this round!” She tried to laugh but only coughed up redness onto the floor. Her hand tightened closed for only a brief second. “C-C-Can you say bye-bye to Zachy for me?” Her arm lowered down to his feet. She barely managed to grasped the toes of his boots. “B-Bye-bye…”

The Batter shook her off once her fingers completely loosened.

⁂

Zacharie held the broken bolas in between his fingers. He clutched the strings before he let go of them. “I guess… it’s better this way.” He stepped on the last remaining weight and let it crack underneath his feet. “Enjoy your journey to the Queen.”

“Is that all?” _Is that all you have to say to me?_

“Yes. See you then.” Zacharie walked away first. The Batter felt his hand twitch at the sight. It ached to be held by his companion once more, but fate seemed to have other plans.

⁂

Exploding baby dolls littered the ground like landmines. There were already bodies everywhere, both workmen and intruders alike. Intruders… They must have been followers of the “K.C.” person’s “party” or whatnot. Whatever. They were dead and the Batter didn’t remember any of it. It didn’t matter. The long, dark corridor ahead of him mattered more. The Queen had a flair for the dramatic.

The building reminded the Batter of his dream featuring Zacharie, but the Batter found himself in a home, not an office like before. A home with teddy bears and more dollbabies and coloring books cluttered this way and that. Was the child there? How poorly guarded was the home and careless was the Queen. The Batter had managed to invade upon a dwelling containing a young child without a hitch.

A smaller hallway led to a small bedroom. The entire space must have been the child’s. Torn calendar pages sat in the corner of the room, stacked on top of a thin comic book. The Batter picked up both. The date on the first page read Sunday, the eleventh of February. It was yellowed with age and captioned with: _“zacharie is the best guy i know He is so sympathetic. he is a Friend.”_ There was no escaping the masked man, was there? The Batter raised an eyebrow. If it was written by the child, then how old was the entry and the child too? There was writing on the backside also.

> _I don’t like this place a lot._
> 
> _Luckily, Papa is here._
> 
> _Today we played together._
> 
> _He offered me a comic._
> 
> _He told me that I was ill, so I had to take pills._
> 
> _It’s inanimate._
> 
> _I don’t like these pills._

The Batter knew it would most likely prove futile with his spotty memory, but still, he thought back to any major events that he could think of falling on the eleventh of February on a Sunday. He recalled that the World Day of the Sick fell on the eleventh of February every year. …But why did he know that?

_“My mother did not have me memorize the Holy Bible for naught.”_

Ah, the past version of himself did say that. The World Day of the Sick was a religious feast day for prayer and sharing. Perhaps his so-called mother had observed it. And it coincided with what the child had written about pills and being sick.

The next page was yellowed like the one before. It was still written in the same childish scrawl with black crayon. The date was the third of June, also Sunday, captioned with: _“Nobody will read this, it is stupid, but it looks like it is real bad…”_ Think, think, think. Ah. Another memory: the poem, “Casey at the Bat: a Ballad of the Republic Sung In the Year 1888,” was created on Sunday, third of June. If not for Zacharie mentioning “K.C.,” “Casey,” and a “poem” then the Batter most likely would not have been able to make the connection. It was like he was peering into another person’s mind, but it was _him_. It was his body doing the actions, his body in a land far away from home, wearing a dark and proud military uniform topped with a backwards baseball cap, commenting on the “Casey at the Bat” ballad, saying that it was okay to write him off as “Casey” instead of “K.C.,” but he said that unlike the poem’s Casey, he would never strikeout – all of his hits were homeruns.

Pictures were taped to the calendar page; one of Dedan, another of Enoch, and another of Japhet. It looked like it was one single picture that had been torn into three so that each of the man was separated from one another. Dedan’s photo was captioned with “the Taller Mister,” Enoch’s with “the Big Mister,” and Japhet’s with… “the Bird.” The skinny man had three doves on each shoulder and another on his head with the gold lace of his robe in its beak. Burgundy skies were behind them and they all held a child in their arms, but the face was lost between the shreds.

There was some smudging underneath Japhet’s picture. The Batter detached it from the calendar page and turned it over. On the back was an adult’s handwriting, the small, neat kind that the Batter recognized from the side of Omega’s walkie-talkie. It was most likely Japhet’s handwriting himself.

> _Dearest Hugo: From the bottom of my heart, I apologize that neither your mother nor father are able to visit to you while you are in the hospital again. I have always kept you in my prayers, but now you are especially not only in my prayers, but in my constant thoughts as well. I hope that your recovery comes sooner rather than later, dear child. Your lungs are weak from the smoke you are constantly surrounded by, from not only your mother, father, your late father, Enoch, and Dedan’s lips but from the countless pipes of the factories and chimneys of the homes and remnants of bombs and chemicals. Zacharie has a similar disease as you—not as severe but from the same cause. That is why he constantly has those tubes in his nose and the tank on his back. Ah, it was caused by the bombing incident in La Casa, Ispaniya at the beginning of the War. Ah… Speaking of “war,” your mother has requested that my team and I censor all mentions of the War from all papers. First your father’s name, and now this? She is quite the demanding woman, but she is the boss and a good one at that._
> 
> _Thankfully, I have small, neat penmanship, but I only have so much space to write. You know that I cannot send a formal letter because it will be searched and read and we both appreciate our privacy. Here I have enclosed my favorite poem of my nephew’s, “Orquídea Blanca,” just for you:_
> 
>  
> 
> _"Orquídea Blanca"_
> 
> _Me he quedado sin el oxígeno_
> 
> _Sólo el humo me rodea_
> 
> _Déjame, quiero morir solo_
> 
> _Y quédate con mí orquídea_
> 
> _El campo amapolas han muerto_
> 
> _Y el cerezo por un cherry bomb_
> 
> _Los niños, compruebe su zapato_
> 
> _¿No hay regalos de General Tom?_
> 
> _¡Ah, hoy todavía está vivo!_
> 
> _Pero sus padres no hicieron_
> 
> _Y que es siempre el comienzo_
> 
> _Los niños se pelean, y miro con—_
> 
> _Las orquídeas blancas de guerra_
> 
> _El aire, cuando se va, me besa_
> 
>  
> 
> _I am sorry that the poem remains in its original form. Zacharie and I have both been too busy to translate it into other languages (as I was too busy establishing the New Church and New Bismarck and Zacharie had been recovering from the attack in the hospital when he had written the line and then went off to the United Fed. to visit your father), but the first line alone, “I have run out of oxygen,” remains famous enough though that people do not feel the need to read the sonnet in its entirety though. Ah, I have spoken too soon there, I have heard children recite it when they march in the streets. (Hopefully you will not be one of those children...) “Orquídea Blanca” is a sonnet. Sonnets follow an ABABCDCDEFEFGG structure and have ten syllables per line. Here is my favorite of Zacharie’s haikus (since I still have some remaining space to write more) that might be more easily digestible (as in, more easily translatable) for you:_
> 
>  
> 
> _“El Rey de los Sapos”_
> 
> _Qué rey malvado_
> 
> _No sabe es que será_
> 
> _Matarlo pronto_
> 
>  
> 
> _Rest your lungs, sweet child. Eat your food and please, do not cry and worsen your condition. Sincerely: Yafeth bin Nuh, soon to be known as “Japhet.”_

The Batter tossed the papers down. Useless. All that remained was the comic book – _Panic In Ballville_ , approved for publication personally by Dedan apparently. It detailed some type of nonsense of a boxer named “Boxxxer” fighting against an enemy named “Ballman” that looked strikingly like the Batter, albeit some type of loony, bug-eyed caricature of the truth. The Boxxxer character looked… A man named Yìhétuán “Boxer” Xiào-François had been named in the newspaper article, perhaps it was him that was being depicted. But why was the Ballman and Boxxxer pitted against one another if, according to the article, they had been described as partners and co-parents of the same child? It was written in the tiniest font, but the Batter’s keen eyes still caught it: _“Who watch the watchmen?”_  was written across one of the backgrounds towards the last page of the comic, just barely there, hidden against the texture of the brick. _“If the United Fed. Tsar can kill the Kyüvek Co-Generalissimo, is there any more justice in the wor—”_  The Batter shut the book and threw it down. He had been around too much nonsense for one day.

“Why did you stop reading?” A voice, as gentle as the breeze or wisps of cotton, spoke from behind him. It tangled and twined in the nooks and crannies of the Batter’s mind that he had been unable to access before. So soothing – like honey, like butterfly wings, like the pouring of milk tea into a porcelain cup. Sudden flashbacks of hushed kisses on a terrace overlooking the city and promises of rebirth went through his head, all because of this one voice.

“Because it is insignificant to my goal.”

“And what goal would that be, hm? Terrorism? Genocide? Tyranny? Completely annihilation? Pick one.”

“I pick peace—always.”

“But you are the destroyer of peace.”

“In a past life that I no longer recall due to your meddling.”

“Meddling?” Shocked. Aghast. He turned to her finally. Her hair was still as white and her face as youthful as he had seen it in the photograph – and in his fragmented memories too. “It is obvious that despite all of my  _help_ , you refuse to change. Go home. We will try this again.”

“Is this not my home? Does this place not contain the cradle of my only begotten son and papers upon papers referring to me?” Her teeth bit into her thin lips. He continued, “Your Guardians have fallen. There is no longer a WORLD for you to return to. I have learned the truth behind your façade.” He took a step closer to her. She was unmoving. “It is over. Give up.”

“I will never surrender.” Still, she looked upset. “But why, why have you destroyed this sanctuary? After all of the war, after all of the battles, the struggles, the blood, pain, tears, trials and tribulations—you still somehow find a way to destroy it all.” Her eyes looked downward at her paling hands. “Perhaps I should have listened and not have brought you here after all… Not only were your bloodthirsty followers impetuous, but so were you. So, please, tell me why you always destroy the peace I always try to create, no matter how minuscule it may be?”

“You do not know the meaning of peace.”

“I believe I do.” Her tone was beginning to rise, but he knew that she would never yell – she was “above it.”

“If you did, none of this would have happened.”

“Is that so?” How long did she intend to go back and forth? “I have done everything for everyone. I only wish for everyone to be happ—”

“Do you honestly believe that anyone could find happiness in this Hell you have created?”

“Do _you_ honestly believe that anyone can find beauty within the Hell that _you_ surround yourself with?” She crossed her arms. “I have watched our son while you have run of—”

“You have failed to protect _my_ child. The door was unlocked. Anyone could have come in and hurt hi—”

“He is not even your son!” Her lips had turned red from how much she had bitten them. “You found him in a crater, orphaned, from one of the bombs that you had dropped in his homeland!” Her finger stuck into his chest. He was heads taller than her. He was heads more intimidating than her, but she met the fire in his eyes. “You call yourself ‘peaceful,’ but you are nothing but a _murderer_!”

Anger. White, hot – like no other.

Blood. Red, hot – like no other.

“Mama!” And then a scream like no other. A child – bald, definitely no longer a child, but the size of a child – came crawling into the room – not crawling, but dragging his body across the floor. “Mama!” He screamed again, weeping, then coughing, then a mix of weeping and coughing. His chest rattled. His breaths were heavy. His waterlogged eyes peered upward. “P-Papa…?” His little hands dipped into the redness that his mother had spilled. “M-Mama, please…” He whispered against her cheeks.

The Batter could admit when he was at fault. He had let his emotions get the best of him and struck the Queen down before a fair fight could commence. The soft flesh and bone of her skull was no match against the wood of his bat. The crown of her head would only be able to hold wounds for the rest of eternity, no longer her false gold or thorns. No matter. The Queen of Worms would have a joyous occasion dancing with the rest of her subjects and bucklings in Hell.

Hugo was trembling before his father. His eyes continued to pool with unstoppable tears, his chest continued to quake with his breaths, his lungs continued to stir with his illness. “P-P…” _Papa_. The Batter had dreams of a man he called “Papa” (and he was called “K.C.” and “boy” in return), but he hadn’t trembled before him. Never would he do such a thing. The boy was weak, not only physically, but emotionally it looked like. Only having mental strength was not true strength.

“I’m here,” the Batter nodded. Reassurance was key. He raised his bat. “Close your eyes.” It was time to escape and start anew. Leave the old news behind. Hugo lowered his head, but still obeyed and closed his eyes.

“B-But Papa…” He coughed. “I’m afraid of the dark…” His shaking was only intensifying. His fingers tightened on his mother’s bloodied shirtfront.

Such foolishness… “From now on, there will be no more darkness.” Without a moment’s hesitation, the father swung his bat down upon his child’s head, crushing it instantly.

⁂

The Judge no longer looked like himself. His clothes were even more disheveled than when the Batter had left him. His hair was still distressed-mussed. What a pitiful sight. The Batter was literally in front of the gates to escape the WORLD. He was growing tired of people standing in his way.

The Judge told him to stop, called him an impostor. The Batter stopped on his own accord, not from the Judge’s command. In his usual sesquipedalian loquaciousness, he accused the Batter of this and that, but the Batter did not listen. The Judge’s small frame was racked with guilt and lingering misery. Such a puny human being wanted to compete against the Batter? Then the Batter would not deny him the challenge, as long as the man was prepared to lose.

But it wasn't a grand affair. The Judge was a weak, puny little creature with the same look in his eye as the sick child. Nonetheless, the Batter took a victorious stomp on the Judge’s fingers, one by one, only releasing the steel sole of his boot once he heard a satisfying cracking confirmation. “You—!” The Judge gasped and writhed in pain. “Y-You have gone mad! What is thi—W-Why are you—?” His fingers were turning purpler than the walls of Dedan’s post and work offices. The bruises across his body were turning bluer than Zacharie’s credits and Japhet’s precious library and candles and blacker than the Queen and Hugo’s dark corridors.

“You know why,” the Batter hissed. The Judge had no choice but to shrivel back. He was inches away from being crushed into nothing but a bloody pulp, and he still wanted to do something as trivial as speaking? “To achieve peace. To forever vanquish the cruelty of this false sanctuary and leave it in its unholy plane and I will return into the next world to achieve the same goal as I have done here.”

“Y-You—!” He let out a stuttering gasp as the Batter crushed his little finger. That was the last finger. The Batter poised his bat over the man’s stomach. “E-Escaping… from your past, your purpose…” The Judge closed his eyes and lied still, as if he was some animal accepting a _coup de grâce_. “Is… impossible… You will be… filled with the memory of this place, and its unfortunate, helpless, _innocent_  citizens for the rest of your regretful existence…” The Judge still tensed when he heard the whoosh of Batter’s bat of swift justice as it rose up into the air. “A man who kills his own wife and child…” He smiled to himself and clutched the puddle-stained ground underneath him with his palms. “How pitif—”

⁂

Darkness. Everywhere – darkness. It swallowed the Batter whole. This must have been the darkness that the sick child had spoken of, not something petty as in when a room is dimmed after the lights are turned off. This enteral, suffocating darkness must have been what the child feared. It only made sense.

So the Batter waited.

He waited,

waited,

waited

until a flash of striking whiteness cut through the darkness and landed right at his fingertips. It was a note.

> _What have we done?_
> 
> _Awaiting your reply._
> 
> _YOUR FRIEND,_
> 
> _…_

“We have only done what is just.” The Batter called out in the blindness. “You are the writer of those documents and letters.” It beat around the bush less to outright state something than to ask broad questions that could go unanswered.

> _I should have assisted the Judge, not you._
> 
> _Awaiting your reply._
> 
> _YOUR FRIEND,_
> 
> _…_

“It is too late for regrets. Now, set me free so I can be a part of the world once more.”

> _The world is no longer what it used to be. That is why I created the WORLD to protect those that were worth preserving._
> 
> _Awaiting your reply._
> 
> _YOUR FRIEND,_
> 
> _…_

“I am someone considered ‘worth persevering’ then.”

> _You were part of the list, yes._
> 
> _Tsar Kazimir “K.C. the Batter” Chumakov of the United Federation, also known as Sire Kazimir Chumakov of Frantsiya, the bastard child of a “virgin” nun and a drunkard politician turned sober immigration officer – a man who at first stayed underneath his mother and father’s thumbs and joined the Men’s Official Baseball League, but then decided that he was worth “more than that” and formed a party based upon “peace” and nearly took over the world._
> 
> _And then we have the wonderful Princess Solène de la Croix of Frantsiya, turned Madame Vader Eloha after her parents were killed in a suicide attack against the royal family – a seemingly ditzy woman who hides the wit of a fox._
> 
> _You were both overseers for a baby with polio that you had found in a bomb crater and decided was a “gift from God.”_
> 
> _And then we have Dedan, Japhet, Valerie, Enoch, Hugo, and so forth._
> 
> _Awaiting your reply._
> 
> _YOUR FRIEND,_
> 
> _…_

_Zacharie…_ “Are you Zacharie?”

> _No._
> 
> _I am a Friend._
> 
> _I am the Creator._
> 
> _I am Alpha, Omega, and Epsilon._
> 
> _I am the Stone that the Builder Refused._
> 
> _I am the Watchman._
> 
> _I am the one who Watches the Watchmen._
> 
> _I am the Puppeteer._
> 
> _And you are the stuff of Saints and Martyrs because you engage your beliefs with a Fanatical Desire to Conquer Anyone In Your Path._
> 
> _Awaiting your reply._
> 
> _YOUR FRIEND,_
> 
> _…_

“Are you done with your incessant blabbering? Set me free.”

> _Set free a man who has killed millions of men, women, and children on the outside world and hundreds of men and his family in this WORLD? I have not gone mad._
> 
> _You are to stay here and meet your demise, Batter._
> 
> _Awaiting your reply._
> 
> _YOUR FRIEND,_
> 
> _…_

“I will escape this abyss just as I did the previous one. Tartarus cannot contain me.”

> _It is a good thing that this is not Tartarus, but Nothingness._
> 
> _You will wander for the rest of eternity until your soul is even more lost than the ones you have wasted._
> 
> _Awaiting your reply._
> 
> _YOUR FRIEND,_
> 
> _…._

“I am too great and powerful to meet my demise in the face of such futility. Release me so I can make your world great again.”

> _Never. If you wanted to take down the WORLD, then you shall be taken down along with it._
> 
> _Awaiting your reply._
> 
> _YOUR FRIEND,_
> 
> _…_

“A new beginning is nigh. Release me so that I may formulate it.”

> _The end is near._
> 
> _Awaiting your reply._
> 
> _YOUR FRIEND,_
> 
> _…._

The Batter could literally hear the shouts of citizens and citizenesses, young and old, some in triumph and some in contempt, just ahead of him. It was so close, yet so far away. Still, his achievements had not been for naught. He had freed everyone else, discovered the truth, and was just on the edge of finding freedom for himself.

So, in his typical fashion, the Batter remained silent and not reply to another message from his “friend” again.

And he waited,

waited,

waited

for _carte blanche_ , for freedom. He could wait forever. Not only was he righteous and just, but he was patient. He let the thought echo in his mind as he set his bat by his side and sat down. Yes, he could wait forever. Eternity was only a blink of the eye.


End file.
